Since the beginning of the year Richard Cleaves, our Minister, has preached a series of sermons on Paul's Letter to the Romans during our Sunday evening services.
The sermon followed a reading from Acts 28:11-31. In that final chapter of Acts Luke tells of Paul's arrival in Rome and leaves Paul "proclaiming the kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness and without hindrance."
Although Paul wrote his letter to the Romans a number of years before, in all likelihood during a three month period when he was staying at Coring that is referred to in Acts 20:3, it makes sense for Romans to follow straight on from Acts. It is as if Romans contains the summing up of Paul's preaching of teh Kingdom of God and of this teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ.
Richard suggested that the whole of Romans can be summarised in two words that Paul uses in Romans 1:7 and again in Romans 16:20 "grace" and "peace".
Paul's account of the Christian faith in chapters 1-11 can be summed up in the one word "grace"
Paul's challenge to living the Christian life in chapters 12-16 can be summed up in the one word "peace".
For this final sermon Richard took as his text Romans 1-16 in its entirety.
It is not insignificant that the sermon was preached on Sunday, 17th October 2010 only days after 33 miners had been rescued from a mine in Chile, in a historic mine rescue. The miners had returned to the mine that Sunday to share in a service of thanksgiving.
Grace and Peace
What it takes to be a Christian
Paul's Letter to the Romans
“The word Christian today is more of a soporific than a slogan. So much – too much – is Christian: Churches, schools, political parties, cultural associations, and of course Europe, the West, the Middle Ages.
I read those words more than thirty years ago and they still ring true today.
They were written by Hans Kung in what was then a best seller, On being a Christian.
It was a book as he said at the very outset written for all those who, for any reason at all, honestly and sincerely want to know what Christianity, what being a Christian really means.
It is written also for those
Who do not believe, but nevertheless seriously inquire;
Who did believe, but are not satisfied with their unbelief;
Who do believe, but feel insecure in their faith,
Who are at a loss, between belief and unbelief;
Who are sceptical both about their convictions and about their doubts.
It is written then for Christians and atheists, Gnostics and agnostics, pietists and positivists, lukewarm and zealous Catholics, Protestants and Orthodox.
And somewhere in that long list was me more than 30 years ago.
What Hans Kung had to say captivated me … and I feel it even more so now.
What is special about Christianity? He asks early on in the book.
Many seek to answer that question by looking for abstract axioms, concepts, principles, ideas.
But Hans Kung was convinced – and he persuaded me.
It is not possible to find the answer there since Christianity, as its name alone suggests, cannot in the last resort be reduced to any kind of eternal ideas, abstract principles, human attitudes. The whole of Christianity is left hanging in mid-air if it is detached from the foundation on which it is built.
The foundation upon which Christianity is built is Jesus Christ.
With the eye of the historian we can uncover the Jesus of history. With the eye of the believer we can see through Jesus to the God who is love.
Jesus Christ invites faith and demands obedience of those who would follow him.
He offers us the free gift of love reaching out from God into our innermost being – that’s to say ‘grace’.
And he challenges us to live in the peace God gives and become peace-makers in a world too often divided. Romans 1:1-7
I want to say a big thank you to the likes of Hans Kung who have been an inspiration to me down through the years, and many others starting from my parents, through my Sunday school teachers, to my school teachers, lecturers, the many people in the churches I have belonged to through the years, not least this church and those I have shared with in the fellowship of our Congregational Federation, especially on our training course. Romans 1:8-15
Some criticised the BBC for sending so many to cover the Chile mine rescue. I wanted to say thank you! Wasn’t it wonderful to have so much of the news bulletins filled with Good News! What a remarkable rescue!
If that’s Good News how much more does our Christian faith rooted in Jesus Christ deserve to be called ‘Good News’. It is good news that we have received, and Good News that we are called on to share.
This Good News is nothing less than the power of God for salvation for all who believe, whatever background they come from. Romans 1:16-17
Mind you, it is not possible to get away from the bad news. It is our responsibility as Christians to turn the spotlight on the world we live in.
Where we see injustice, where we see immorality, where we see what is wrong we must speak out. Romans 1:18-32
We stand by the ten commandments, narrowed down to two Love God, Love your neighbour, summed up by Jesus in the Golden Rule do to others what you would have others do to you.
That sense of justice, the essence of that morality, that golden rule is not ours alone. On the wall in the Tantur Institute seminar room in that conference on reconciliation I attended a couple of years ago in Bethlehem was a poster with that Golden rule quoted from all the religions of the world.
There is something that is common to humanity, call it conscience if you will, that at rock bottom can tell the difference between right and wrong. Romans 2:1 – 3:20
How tragic that there is within us all, each one of us, the capacity to get it wrong. And it is the sad tale of the whole of humanity that we get it wrong.
But that is not the end of the story.
Jesus Christ presents us with a way out.
In that Chilean mine they called that pod that brought about that remarkable rescue ‘the phoenix’ – so-called after the bird that is destroyed but then arises again out of the ashes of the very fire that destroyed it.
For us as Christians Jesus Christ is nothing less than the phoenix – he is the one who offers a way out, a way to break the impasse.
The reality is that all of us, all of humanity, each one of us, without exception falls short of the ideal. We do not live up to it.
It can feel as if we are trapped in a world that is so destructive. Jesus shared with our humanity to the point of the cross and utter devastation. Through his resurrection we can share in his victory and see that destruction does not have the last word. That is liberating.
It can feel as if God has to be against us because we have so let him down. We can look to the cross, hear again Christ’s words of forgiveness and know that he has restored the closest possible relationship we could ever hope for with God.
It can feel as if we have to carry the weight of the world’s evil on our shoulders. We can look to the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and see that he has shouldered that burden. As we see in him the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world, we know that he has taken away the sin of each one of us and God accepts us as we are.
Look to Jesus. Believe in Jesus. And there is a transformation. Romans 3:21 – 4:25
It must have taken some doing to step into that pod, into that Phoenix. Stepping from it was the most wonderful step of freedom anyone of those men had taken. The second to step out, Mario Sepulveda, leapt and sang and handed out stones and later explained the spiritual crisis he had experienced underground: “I was with God and I was with the devil, he said. They were fighting over me and God won. I grabbed on to the best hand. I held onto it and never thought for one minute that God wouldn’t get me out of there.”
The 17th miner to be set free Omar Reygadas, knelt on the ground, clutching a Bible as family and friends, and President of Chile looked on in silence.
What a difference their faith made to those miners in that ordeal.
What a difference our faith can make to us in any ordeal we face.
Jesus draws us into the embrace of a loving God who takes us by the hand and enables us to stand in that grace, knowing that we are forgiven. There is no escaping the world with its sufferings: as we journey through that world God holds us by the hand and enables us to face that world with endurance, with patience, and with a hope that will not disappoint us.
How can we be so sure? Because through Jesus Christ it is nothing less than the love of God that is poured into our hearts by that unseen yet very real strength and power of God that is his Holy Spirit. Romans 5:1-21
For those miners buried for 17 days before they were discovered and for another 49 days before they were set free it was nothing less than a burial and a resurrection.
Jesus comes with us, alongside us, and shares our humanity at its abject lowest … and then he lifts us into the presence of God in all his glory. A wonderful love that will not let us go. For us that experience is nothing less than a death and resurrection.
It is as if we can go right back to the beginning and begin all over again.
Romans 6:1-23
It is tough, however.
And the doubts and the questions remain.
And faced with some of the awfulness of our world, those questions get tougher.
It’s all very well the preacher latching on to the faith of those miners – but in so many other places the rescue doesn’t come. The suffering prevails.
And even in our own lives evil seems to have the last word.
The good that I would I do not, the evil that I would not that I do. Romans 7:1-25
The reality is that we cannot do it on our own.
I have often felt that if Christianity were nothing more than a way of life to follow it would be a recipe for breakdown and disaster for none of us can live up to the challenge Jesus Christ asks of us.
But Christianity is Good News.
That Good News is the power of God for salvation to all who believe.
And that power of God is let loose in our lives.
Sometimes people say prayer is the key. And it is. How vitally important prayer is. But what about those times when prayer doesn’t come, when prayer doesn’t work.
My words go up, my thoughts remain below
Words without thoughts never to heaven go.
It is precisely at those times when we find ourselves groaning in despair that God is actually with us. Remember the footprints. At that moment when there is only one set of prints and we feel as if God has abandoned us and we wail and groan inside … that’s the moment when God is carrying us. Those very groans and wails are nothing less than God within us in that unseen and yet very real presence of his groaning and wailing with us. The strength of that Spirit bears us through.
We are not alone. There is a strength beside us and within in the unseen, yet very real power of God, the Holy Spirit. Don’t be put off by the excesses of the Toronto Blessing, of speaking in tongues. The Holy Spirit is fundamental to our Christian faith, we cannot do without it – for that’s the strength we need to see us through.
For well over twenty years I have had a plaque on the wall of my study that says, Lord help me to remember that nothing is going to happen to me today that you and I together can’t handle.
In the conviction that God is present with me from day to day in his unseen yet very real power of the Holy Spirit, I can say that I am convinced that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8:1-39
That’s a conviction that is for me at least a very personal one. But for some in the church today it is a conviction to hold on to in the face of very great hardship and even persecution. One of those places where that is very apparent is in the Middle East. And it is focused in the Holy Land.
Jesus offers us the grace of God’s free forgiving love.
Jesus draws us into the peace of the presence of God and asks us to be peace-makers. How important for us to support in our praying and in every way we can those Christian churches who are seeking to live that out in the midst of the conflicts that come especially when the extremes of Judaism and Christianity clash with the extremes of Islam. Romans 9-11
The whole point of faith, the whole point of grace, the whole point of being in this relationship with Christ is that it shapes the way we lead our lives.
That’s what it all builds up to.
In response to the wonderful gift of God’s free forgiving love, let’s offer the whole of our lives in service to God by being of service to one another.
Let’s not go it alone.
Let’s play our part as part of the body of Christ, working together with those who share the faith in the life and work of the church.
Let us above all love one another, with a love that is sincere and genuine, with a love that does not draw boundaries but embraces all, with a love that shows honour and respect, and with a love that reaches out even to those who are our enemies. Romans 12
Alice Brown belonged first to Highbury when it was in Winchcombe Street, and returned to the church at the death of her sister about ten years ago. In her room in Lilian Faithful House she has a book case of 200 books most of which are books of poetry and classics of English literature. I found myself on Friday afternoon reading some of the poetry of Shakespeare and of John Donne.
I passionately take my stand on the insight of John Donne …
No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the Continent, a part of the main; if a Clod be washed away by the Sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a Promontorie were, as well as if a Manor of thy friends or of thine own were; any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind; And therefore never sent to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee ….
As Christians we have to be part of society and more than that we have to play our full part in that society. Romans 13
As Christians we have to be part of a community of Christian people that we get to know by name. How vital to the well-being of our church is our visiting scheme and the visitors meeting on Thursday – how important the lists we have of those who belong, diligently kept up to date for our visitors meeting. How important that we know each other by name. Of each other and of others outside we must never be judgemental and we must always recognise that the most important members of our church family are those who are the most vulnerable. Romans 14:1 – 16:24
The God of peace will overcome all evil
The Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ will be with us. Romans 16:20
And so to God who is able to strengthen us according to this wonderful good news that is nothing less than the power of God for salvation to all who believe,
To God who is able to strengthen us according to the message of Jesus Christ, a message that contains the key to the very meaning of life.
To God who is able to strengthen us according to those commandments that shape a life of faith
To the only wise God be glory for ever. Romans 16:25-27
May the God of hope fill us with all joy and peace in believing,
So that we may abound in hope
By the power of the Holy Spirit. Romans 15:13
Sunday, October 17, 2010
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Friendship and Trust
Our X-Stream group for older children, with Judi Marsh, led our Sunday morning service on 3rd October. Becky Hartwell, our Pastoral Assistant, preached on the theme of Friendship and Trust. Leading into the sermon Becky played a wonderful YouTube video clip showing not only the trust two guitar players had for each other but the joy of their friendship too!
Friendship is a huge part of our world, whether it is on television shows about finding your best friend forever or in soaps where friendships can be trouble, fun, involve all sorts of betrayals. Friendship can be a significant part of our work and social situations, affecting the decisions we make in our lives. We can also have the friends we have kept for life, friends we may not see often but have great conversations with when we get together. There are the friendships in the bible, between Ruth and Naomi, David and Jonathan, Moses and Aaron, and more.
Friendships can sustain us, they can keep us going in the bad times and mean we have someone to share the fun times with.
There are some amazing friendships at Highbury. From Ceitidh Macleod and Eleanor Archer, they’re 4 years old and they love running around together. There is the White family and Schonbeck family - parents and children who are great friends. Then we have Lorraine Gasside and Janet Brown, and we also have John Lewis and Lillian Watkins, not running around together as much as Ceitidh and Eleanor but I’m sure there is still similar joys. Friendship knows no boundaries.
We can see from our current friendships and those of people around us that friendships are significant things in our lives, whether they are part of a marriage or the bond we share with a neighbour.
This is something important that the X-stream children recognised and wanted to share with you today, which is why they chose this topic. I’m just going to share some words this morning which have come from various areas including the children. Thoughts on this passage, on friendship, on trust and how we can build it in our friendships with others and our friendship with God.
We have the dramatised reading the children shared with us earlier. Jesus and Peter walking on water. We can see a lot of the things we have in our friendships with others are reflected in the friendship between Jesus and Peter.
The friendship between Peter and Jesus took time. It had ups and downs. We may have this in our own friendships with people and in our friendship with God. We see in the two readings just two glimpses in the friendship between Jesus and Peter and we can see things did not always go smoothly. Peter wanted to trust Jesus but it wasn’t always there. Peter did not want to disappoint Jesus but it still happened. Jesus knew Peter cared about him and Jesus cared about Peter, but sometimes things went wrong.
Our friendships with Jesus can have that as well. Sometimes we get angry or upset with God, wondering why things have happened. Sometimes we can feel distant from God, struggling to fit everything in our lives and sometimes we can feel we have disappointed him, wondering how things went so wrong, why we did what we did or not sure what has happened.
In the story of Peter we can see that even in those things Jesus still loved Peter, Jesus was still there for Peter, Jesus still trusted him. Trusted him to go into the world when Jesus was back in heaven and share the good news. Trusted him with an important message, to lead people and to help them in their struggles.
Jesus is still that person for us. No matter what happens Jesus still loves us, he is still there for us, he still trusts us. It’s an amazing thing. When Peter started to fall in the water Jesus could have asked him to leave the disciples, telling him he’d had enough but he didn’t. Jesus picked him up and continued to teach him, not giving up on him.
But then sometimes it is hard to trust God. Maybe we can think of a time where we struggled to do the things we felt God was asking us to do, struggled in how he wanted us to serve him or struggled with a passage of the bible and what it meant for our lives.
Peter let his fear affect his trust of Jesus and this affected his actions, he started sinking into the water, he couldn’t believe that Jesus would sustain him in doing the miraculous.
What Peter was struggling with was trust. But when I talked with the children they had some great ways that we could build trust. We know that trusting someone isn’t always easy, we see this in the struggles that Peter had in his moments with Jesus but the children suggested some helpful ways in learning to trust other people.
You can get to know the person better.
This might involve talking with friends, finding out what they love, hate, something about their past, learning all about them. This can also be part of our relationship with God. We can learn about him through reading the bible, talking with others and through prayer. We can share our hopes and fears with God in our prayers and also take time to meditate on his words and being in the silence with him.
One of the things Tabby and Grace do that builds up their friendship is that they play together.
I don’t think Peter and Jesus went on a trampoline together but I think there was some socialising time between them, they ate together, they walked together. But how can we play with God? God is always with us, whether we are watching a film or going on a walk. It is hard to think of this as playing with God but it is spending time with him. We can pray through an activity, telling God about the fun we are having on a crossword or when listening to a particular song, thinking about how it relates to our lives with God.
We talked about testing people to find out if we could trust them. We saw in the bunny story earlier that friends may test each other and in doing so it can lead to great trust or no trust at all. So how do we test God? And should we test God? Well, we can ask questions. Richard reminded us a couple of weeks ago week how important it is to ask questions. Not to test God in going sky diving without a parachute and expecting him to save us but to question who God is, to speak to others, to learn what God is about and what that means to us in our lives.
The children mentioned one other thing when it comes to trusting. Trusting someone isn’t always about them it is about you as well. Trusting someone takes something out of yourself. We have to decide, are we going to trust someone or not? Are we going to trust what God wants for us, that he loves us, that he is with us, that we can have a close friendship with him or not? It takes a leap of faith. We have to make that decision for ourselves.
We also talked about how it is good to have more than one friendship. Jesus is always there for us and he is not a jealous friend, he encourages us to talk to others, to be with other people and one of the many places we can do that is church. I shared some of the church friendships earlier, but these aren’t the only friendships here and there are many more still to grow, with all the ages. But Jesus is our BFF, our best friend forever. Whoever comes in and goes out of our lives Jesus is there no matter what, he doesn’t move to a different area, he doesn’t fall out with us and stop speaking to us, he doesn’t find someone he likes even better than us, he doesn’t get too busy to have us in his life. Jesus is there for us even after we have rejected him.
Jesus saw Peter sinking and “immediately he reached out his hand and caught him.” He didn’t try and decide if the friendship was worth it, was he getting enough out of it, was Peter really good enough to be his friend. Instead he reached out his hand immediately.
When Peter was aware he had rejected Jesus, Jesus didn’t respond by going into a sulk, letting him get some of “his own medicine”, say cruel things or ignore him. Instead, knowing that Peter was still suffering over his actions, he reminded Peter that he still had worth, that he could still serve him, that their friendship was still there – that he knew Peter loved him.
Jesus’ love and forgiveness is never ending and neither is his friendship.
The differences between having a sort of acquaintance friendship to a close bond friendship where you trust the other person are numerous. But one of the differences is that we can have more fun. You may remember from the video earlier that there wasn’t just laughter from the audience but there was laughter from the musicians as well. They weren’t just trying to get through it, hoping they wouldn’t make mistakes, worrying what the other person was doing, they were enjoying themselves. I think the same can be said in our relationship with God.
The times when you see something that makes you smile and you want to share it with God, or when you lead or help at a group that you were nervous about and something great happens and you want to share your joys with God. That is part of a deeper friendship. A deeper friendship with God means lots of things, knowledge, comfort, companionship, hope and joy.
As we go home I’d encourage us all to build our friendships, with other people, with those we haven’t spoken to in a while and with God. To look at the friendships we have and that those around us have and see what we can learn from them.
I hope that our friendship with God this week enables us to helped where our need is deepest, whether it is in needing comfort, needing to be loved, needing to know we’re not alone or needing to see joy in something.
Real friendships aren’t easy, they take time, effort, they take work and they take trust. But we can have a true, deep and everlasting friendship with Jesus.
Friendship is a huge part of our world, whether it is on television shows about finding your best friend forever or in soaps where friendships can be trouble, fun, involve all sorts of betrayals. Friendship can be a significant part of our work and social situations, affecting the decisions we make in our lives. We can also have the friends we have kept for life, friends we may not see often but have great conversations with when we get together. There are the friendships in the bible, between Ruth and Naomi, David and Jonathan, Moses and Aaron, and more.
Friendships can sustain us, they can keep us going in the bad times and mean we have someone to share the fun times with.
There are some amazing friendships at Highbury. From Ceitidh Macleod and Eleanor Archer, they’re 4 years old and they love running around together. There is the White family and Schonbeck family - parents and children who are great friends. Then we have Lorraine Gasside and Janet Brown, and we also have John Lewis and Lillian Watkins, not running around together as much as Ceitidh and Eleanor but I’m sure there is still similar joys. Friendship knows no boundaries.
We can see from our current friendships and those of people around us that friendships are significant things in our lives, whether they are part of a marriage or the bond we share with a neighbour.
This is something important that the X-stream children recognised and wanted to share with you today, which is why they chose this topic. I’m just going to share some words this morning which have come from various areas including the children. Thoughts on this passage, on friendship, on trust and how we can build it in our friendships with others and our friendship with God.
We have the dramatised reading the children shared with us earlier. Jesus and Peter walking on water. We can see a lot of the things we have in our friendships with others are reflected in the friendship between Jesus and Peter.
The friendship between Peter and Jesus took time. It had ups and downs. We may have this in our own friendships with people and in our friendship with God. We see in the two readings just two glimpses in the friendship between Jesus and Peter and we can see things did not always go smoothly. Peter wanted to trust Jesus but it wasn’t always there. Peter did not want to disappoint Jesus but it still happened. Jesus knew Peter cared about him and Jesus cared about Peter, but sometimes things went wrong.
Our friendships with Jesus can have that as well. Sometimes we get angry or upset with God, wondering why things have happened. Sometimes we can feel distant from God, struggling to fit everything in our lives and sometimes we can feel we have disappointed him, wondering how things went so wrong, why we did what we did or not sure what has happened.
In the story of Peter we can see that even in those things Jesus still loved Peter, Jesus was still there for Peter, Jesus still trusted him. Trusted him to go into the world when Jesus was back in heaven and share the good news. Trusted him with an important message, to lead people and to help them in their struggles.
Jesus is still that person for us. No matter what happens Jesus still loves us, he is still there for us, he still trusts us. It’s an amazing thing. When Peter started to fall in the water Jesus could have asked him to leave the disciples, telling him he’d had enough but he didn’t. Jesus picked him up and continued to teach him, not giving up on him.
But then sometimes it is hard to trust God. Maybe we can think of a time where we struggled to do the things we felt God was asking us to do, struggled in how he wanted us to serve him or struggled with a passage of the bible and what it meant for our lives.
Peter let his fear affect his trust of Jesus and this affected his actions, he started sinking into the water, he couldn’t believe that Jesus would sustain him in doing the miraculous.
What Peter was struggling with was trust. But when I talked with the children they had some great ways that we could build trust. We know that trusting someone isn’t always easy, we see this in the struggles that Peter had in his moments with Jesus but the children suggested some helpful ways in learning to trust other people.
You can get to know the person better.
This might involve talking with friends, finding out what they love, hate, something about their past, learning all about them. This can also be part of our relationship with God. We can learn about him through reading the bible, talking with others and through prayer. We can share our hopes and fears with God in our prayers and also take time to meditate on his words and being in the silence with him.
One of the things Tabby and Grace do that builds up their friendship is that they play together.
I don’t think Peter and Jesus went on a trampoline together but I think there was some socialising time between them, they ate together, they walked together. But how can we play with God? God is always with us, whether we are watching a film or going on a walk. It is hard to think of this as playing with God but it is spending time with him. We can pray through an activity, telling God about the fun we are having on a crossword or when listening to a particular song, thinking about how it relates to our lives with God.
We talked about testing people to find out if we could trust them. We saw in the bunny story earlier that friends may test each other and in doing so it can lead to great trust or no trust at all. So how do we test God? And should we test God? Well, we can ask questions. Richard reminded us a couple of weeks ago week how important it is to ask questions. Not to test God in going sky diving without a parachute and expecting him to save us but to question who God is, to speak to others, to learn what God is about and what that means to us in our lives.
The children mentioned one other thing when it comes to trusting. Trusting someone isn’t always about them it is about you as well. Trusting someone takes something out of yourself. We have to decide, are we going to trust someone or not? Are we going to trust what God wants for us, that he loves us, that he is with us, that we can have a close friendship with him or not? It takes a leap of faith. We have to make that decision for ourselves.
We also talked about how it is good to have more than one friendship. Jesus is always there for us and he is not a jealous friend, he encourages us to talk to others, to be with other people and one of the many places we can do that is church. I shared some of the church friendships earlier, but these aren’t the only friendships here and there are many more still to grow, with all the ages. But Jesus is our BFF, our best friend forever. Whoever comes in and goes out of our lives Jesus is there no matter what, he doesn’t move to a different area, he doesn’t fall out with us and stop speaking to us, he doesn’t find someone he likes even better than us, he doesn’t get too busy to have us in his life. Jesus is there for us even after we have rejected him.
Jesus saw Peter sinking and “immediately he reached out his hand and caught him.” He didn’t try and decide if the friendship was worth it, was he getting enough out of it, was Peter really good enough to be his friend. Instead he reached out his hand immediately.
When Peter was aware he had rejected Jesus, Jesus didn’t respond by going into a sulk, letting him get some of “his own medicine”, say cruel things or ignore him. Instead, knowing that Peter was still suffering over his actions, he reminded Peter that he still had worth, that he could still serve him, that their friendship was still there – that he knew Peter loved him.
Jesus’ love and forgiveness is never ending and neither is his friendship.
The differences between having a sort of acquaintance friendship to a close bond friendship where you trust the other person are numerous. But one of the differences is that we can have more fun. You may remember from the video earlier that there wasn’t just laughter from the audience but there was laughter from the musicians as well. They weren’t just trying to get through it, hoping they wouldn’t make mistakes, worrying what the other person was doing, they were enjoying themselves. I think the same can be said in our relationship with God.
The times when you see something that makes you smile and you want to share it with God, or when you lead or help at a group that you were nervous about and something great happens and you want to share your joys with God. That is part of a deeper friendship. A deeper friendship with God means lots of things, knowledge, comfort, companionship, hope and joy.
As we go home I’d encourage us all to build our friendships, with other people, with those we haven’t spoken to in a while and with God. To look at the friendships we have and that those around us have and see what we can learn from them.
I hope that our friendship with God this week enables us to helped where our need is deepest, whether it is in needing comfort, needing to be loved, needing to know we’re not alone or needing to see joy in something.
Real friendships aren’t easy, they take time, effort, they take work and they take trust. But we can have a true, deep and everlasting friendship with Jesus.
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Honour and Respect - a light that shines
Philip Clarke shared these thoughts with us during our Harvest Service on Sunday, 26th September. The Congregational Federation has entered into a partnership through Christian Aid with Oné Respé, a project working in the Dominican Republic. Philip Clarke, from Southam Congregational Church, joine a small group of people from CF churches who visited the Dominican Republic and the Oné Resé project last November.
Picture the scene:-
· Sitting in a service on a November evening – dark outside
· Service taking place in a large room beside the school – about 50 people there
· Service being led by members of the local community, all of whom live close to the school
· Worship involves hymns, Bible reading (Zaccheus), prayers (including Lords Prayer and open prayers from the congregation giving thanks to God for their many blessings), an address
· Music group accompanying the singing
· Refreshments (tea and cake) afterwards
So far so normal. Probably been to service similar to that – maybe many times.
But let me fill in a little more of the colour:-
· Maybe dark on this November evening – but still over 30˚c
· Room has wooden strips on walls with gaps to let some welcome cool air come through building – also, no glass in windows. Tin roof.
· 50 people seeing by light of one (energy efficient!) light bulb and three small candles floating in a bowl
· Music group were a Caribbean rhythm section – no guitars or keyboards!
· All in Spanish
· Me and my small group of friends are the only white people in the room
· Refreshments afterwards are delicious – but unlike any tea and cake I have ever had at home
I am, of course, along way from home - in Dominican Republic as part of group from the CF and Christian Aid visiting the project that we in the CF have been supporting over the last 2½ years.
At the heart of the service was a paradox, and the paradox was this. There were elements of the service that we found quite alien to our experience (heat, language, lack of light, the music). These would have been totally normal and everyday to our hosts. Paradoxically, however, those things which we found familiar (the fact they were holding a service at all, the leadership from local people) were the most unusual and striking and exciting to the local people.
The story behind the service, and the reason we could all gather on that hot November evening, is really the story of One Respe. Service gives us a snapshot, a microcosm, of what OR has been doing in the Dominican Republic and why we are now supporting it.
The story of OR is the story of a divided country.
· Country of great beauty and natural diversity (holiday destination) but also squalor and ugliness
· Some live in wealth but 44% live below the poverty line – 2nd poorest country in the Caribbean.
· Some benefit from access to education, housing and health facilities, but many do not
· IMPORTANTLY, a country whose people are rightly understood as happy and welcoming, but through whom runs a deep vein of racism.
As you know, the Dominican Republic shares the island of Hispaniola with a smaller and much poorer country – Haiti. Events of last few months following earthquake on 12/1/10 are well known. What is less well understood over here is that tensions between the relatively poor DR and desperately poor Haiti go back centuries.
Relationships difficult between two countries ever since colonial era – 200 years ago, but they have become even stronger over last century as the DR has tried to lift itself out of poverty through agriculture and tourism, whilst Haiti has continued to wallow as one of the poorest countries in the world.
Economic migration into the DR is well established. Initially welcomed by Gov’t – Haitians doing agricultural hobs that Dominicans didn’t want to do. Many lived on plantations in bateyes.
Urban migration more recent. Bought two nations face to face. Competing for work. Has led to major hostility between the two peoples; mistrust & prejudice. Seen in institutional racism: difficult for Haitians and those of mixed descent to access health, education and other services.
Result = communities marginalised – socially, politically, economically and physically.
· Often the most poor
· Often live at the margins of society – squatter settlements on land nobody else wants – for good reason.
· Can’t access health facilities or basic education
· Nobody to bring them together as a community / represent them / give them a community voice.
We tend to think of poverty in absolute terms – basics of life: food, water, shelter. But poverty, real poverty, is about more than this. Imagine what it would be like for us to be at the margins of society like this. Who would give us the tools and the confidence to lift ourselves out of poverty? Who would speak up for us?
Introduce Catuxo Badillo. Late 60’s. Born in Santiago. Travelled in Europe. Saw ideals of student movements in 1960s. What could he do in his own community? His response was One Respe. Over years, OR has worked alongside these marginalised Haitian and Dominico-Haitian communities to:-
· Bring communities together. Give them a place to meet and a voice
· Educate the children - have set up “little schools” – basic education up to age 13.
· Train and encourage local people to become community leaders.
· Train “health promoters” to work alongside local people to help people access medical care (often provided by other charities), and to provide support to people with long term illnesses
· Educate people in basic healthcare issues, such as HIV/Aids.
· Social skills training – “new masculinity” project.
Christian Aid has partnered OR since 1990, and the CF is partnering Christian Aid between 2008 and 2011 to support the work of OR in both Santiago and in Haina near Santo Domingo.
Today is Harvest Sunday when we give thanks for all the good things we enjoy (and maybe take for granted) and we remember those who can’t share the rich abundance that we enjoy. Also, a chance to think about our harvest. What would we offer to each other and to God as our harvest offering?
Just as we do when we think of poverty, we tend to focus on material things when we think of our harvest. We think of food, water, warmth and shelter. But surely, our harvest offering can and should be viewed as our total offering to God. What we do with our talents, resources and time to see God’s kingdom in our world.
In the work of OR, we saw the fruits of an abundant harvest:-
· People coming together as a community and having the confidence to grow
· People supporting each other in times of need.
· People filling the gaps where wider society has let them down – educating children
· Financial, emotional and prayer support from CA and directly from us within the CF supporting and enabling this work.
Why did I choose the story of Zacchaeus? Used at OR but also for another reason. Story of Zacchaeus is story of someone who, in this case through his own actions, became marginalised from his own community. We aren’t told why he went up that tree to see Jesus but we know he wanted to, and we know something of the immediate impact that meeting Jesus had on his life. I would love to know what happened to Zacchaeus after this story, but I would like to imagine that his life changed permanently and for the better. I would hope that his meeting with Jesus really was a turning point in his life and the catalyst to him re-engaging with his community and ceasing to be marginalised from it. Jesus helped him to re-connect with people round him, and in so doing change his life for good.
We should be careful before trying to draw too many parallels between Zacchaeus and the marginalised communities in the DR. Zacchaeus was rich, and he (we assume) brought his problems on himself. Neither is the case for marginalised communities within the DR. But maybe OR is fulfilling the role that Jesus filled in Zacchaeus’s life – showing him the way, and giving him the confidence, to find his place in his community and in wider society.
In closing, I would like to return to that hot schoolroom in Santiago and to the service. Haven’t yet mentioned the most surprising aspect of the service.
· OR suggested that the people should hold a service
· Supported – but could you provide a priest to lead the worship?
· No said OR – lead it yourselves.
Most remarkable feature of the service was that it was led by the people themselves, and particularly by the women. What a wonderful mark of their growing maturity and confidence as a community that they can do this, and praise God in their own way and very much in their own voices. This has been possible directly because of the support from OR. Can I just ask that today, for the rest of this partnership with Christian Aid, and into the future, we all continue to uphold these people, and the work they do, in out thoughts and prayers.
Can I leave you with a quotation from somebody we met in Santiago. Her name is Milagros Frias, and she is a teacher at the One Respe school in Los Perez in Santiago that we visited. She said:-
“Onè Respé is like a light. To imagine these communities without Onè Respé would be like they have lost a guiding light.”
Amen.
Picture the scene:-
· Sitting in a service on a November evening – dark outside
· Service taking place in a large room beside the school – about 50 people there
· Service being led by members of the local community, all of whom live close to the school
· Worship involves hymns, Bible reading (Zaccheus), prayers (including Lords Prayer and open prayers from the congregation giving thanks to God for their many blessings), an address
· Music group accompanying the singing
· Refreshments (tea and cake) afterwards
So far so normal. Probably been to service similar to that – maybe many times.
But let me fill in a little more of the colour:-
· Maybe dark on this November evening – but still over 30˚c
· Room has wooden strips on walls with gaps to let some welcome cool air come through building – also, no glass in windows. Tin roof.
· 50 people seeing by light of one (energy efficient!) light bulb and three small candles floating in a bowl
· Music group were a Caribbean rhythm section – no guitars or keyboards!
· All in Spanish
· Me and my small group of friends are the only white people in the room
· Refreshments afterwards are delicious – but unlike any tea and cake I have ever had at home
I am, of course, along way from home - in Dominican Republic as part of group from the CF and Christian Aid visiting the project that we in the CF have been supporting over the last 2½ years.
At the heart of the service was a paradox, and the paradox was this. There were elements of the service that we found quite alien to our experience (heat, language, lack of light, the music). These would have been totally normal and everyday to our hosts. Paradoxically, however, those things which we found familiar (the fact they were holding a service at all, the leadership from local people) were the most unusual and striking and exciting to the local people.
The story behind the service, and the reason we could all gather on that hot November evening, is really the story of One Respe. Service gives us a snapshot, a microcosm, of what OR has been doing in the Dominican Republic and why we are now supporting it.
The story of OR is the story of a divided country.
· Country of great beauty and natural diversity (holiday destination) but also squalor and ugliness
· Some live in wealth but 44% live below the poverty line – 2nd poorest country in the Caribbean.
· Some benefit from access to education, housing and health facilities, but many do not
· IMPORTANTLY, a country whose people are rightly understood as happy and welcoming, but through whom runs a deep vein of racism.
As you know, the Dominican Republic shares the island of Hispaniola with a smaller and much poorer country – Haiti. Events of last few months following earthquake on 12/1/10 are well known. What is less well understood over here is that tensions between the relatively poor DR and desperately poor Haiti go back centuries.
Relationships difficult between two countries ever since colonial era – 200 years ago, but they have become even stronger over last century as the DR has tried to lift itself out of poverty through agriculture and tourism, whilst Haiti has continued to wallow as one of the poorest countries in the world.
Economic migration into the DR is well established. Initially welcomed by Gov’t – Haitians doing agricultural hobs that Dominicans didn’t want to do. Many lived on plantations in bateyes.
Urban migration more recent. Bought two nations face to face. Competing for work. Has led to major hostility between the two peoples; mistrust & prejudice. Seen in institutional racism: difficult for Haitians and those of mixed descent to access health, education and other services.
Result = communities marginalised – socially, politically, economically and physically.
· Often the most poor
· Often live at the margins of society – squatter settlements on land nobody else wants – for good reason.
· Can’t access health facilities or basic education
· Nobody to bring them together as a community / represent them / give them a community voice.
We tend to think of poverty in absolute terms – basics of life: food, water, shelter. But poverty, real poverty, is about more than this. Imagine what it would be like for us to be at the margins of society like this. Who would give us the tools and the confidence to lift ourselves out of poverty? Who would speak up for us?
Introduce Catuxo Badillo. Late 60’s. Born in Santiago. Travelled in Europe. Saw ideals of student movements in 1960s. What could he do in his own community? His response was One Respe. Over years, OR has worked alongside these marginalised Haitian and Dominico-Haitian communities to:-
· Bring communities together. Give them a place to meet and a voice
· Educate the children - have set up “little schools” – basic education up to age 13.
· Train and encourage local people to become community leaders.
· Train “health promoters” to work alongside local people to help people access medical care (often provided by other charities), and to provide support to people with long term illnesses
· Educate people in basic healthcare issues, such as HIV/Aids.
· Social skills training – “new masculinity” project.
Christian Aid has partnered OR since 1990, and the CF is partnering Christian Aid between 2008 and 2011 to support the work of OR in both Santiago and in Haina near Santo Domingo.
Today is Harvest Sunday when we give thanks for all the good things we enjoy (and maybe take for granted) and we remember those who can’t share the rich abundance that we enjoy. Also, a chance to think about our harvest. What would we offer to each other and to God as our harvest offering?
Just as we do when we think of poverty, we tend to focus on material things when we think of our harvest. We think of food, water, warmth and shelter. But surely, our harvest offering can and should be viewed as our total offering to God. What we do with our talents, resources and time to see God’s kingdom in our world.
In the work of OR, we saw the fruits of an abundant harvest:-
· People coming together as a community and having the confidence to grow
· People supporting each other in times of need.
· People filling the gaps where wider society has let them down – educating children
· Financial, emotional and prayer support from CA and directly from us within the CF supporting and enabling this work.
Why did I choose the story of Zacchaeus? Used at OR but also for another reason. Story of Zacchaeus is story of someone who, in this case through his own actions, became marginalised from his own community. We aren’t told why he went up that tree to see Jesus but we know he wanted to, and we know something of the immediate impact that meeting Jesus had on his life. I would love to know what happened to Zacchaeus after this story, but I would like to imagine that his life changed permanently and for the better. I would hope that his meeting with Jesus really was a turning point in his life and the catalyst to him re-engaging with his community and ceasing to be marginalised from it. Jesus helped him to re-connect with people round him, and in so doing change his life for good.
We should be careful before trying to draw too many parallels between Zacchaeus and the marginalised communities in the DR. Zacchaeus was rich, and he (we assume) brought his problems on himself. Neither is the case for marginalised communities within the DR. But maybe OR is fulfilling the role that Jesus filled in Zacchaeus’s life – showing him the way, and giving him the confidence, to find his place in his community and in wider society.
In closing, I would like to return to that hot schoolroom in Santiago and to the service. Haven’t yet mentioned the most surprising aspect of the service.
· OR suggested that the people should hold a service
· Supported – but could you provide a priest to lead the worship?
· No said OR – lead it yourselves.
Most remarkable feature of the service was that it was led by the people themselves, and particularly by the women. What a wonderful mark of their growing maturity and confidence as a community that they can do this, and praise God in their own way and very much in their own voices. This has been possible directly because of the support from OR. Can I just ask that today, for the rest of this partnership with Christian Aid, and into the future, we all continue to uphold these people, and the work they do, in out thoughts and prayers.
Can I leave you with a quotation from somebody we met in Santiago. Her name is Milagros Frias, and she is a teacher at the One Respe school in Los Perez in Santiago that we visited. She said:-
“Onè Respé is like a light. To imagine these communities without Onè Respé would be like they have lost a guiding light.”
Amen.
Sunday, September 19, 2010
Children in Church
It was Becky’s doing!
I say that neither by way of blame, nor by way of praise.
I say it by way of explanation.
It was Becky who said that we should have a commissioning of all those who help with children’s work. It needs to come towards the beginning of a new session … and when we are all going to be around. And today’s service seemed a good moment to do that.
So, over to you. I then thought of readings we could draw on, a story to tell the children. What better story to tell than of the childhood of Jesus – the value he attached to learning, the place of ‘synagogue’ and ‘temple’ in his upbringing. The importance of church in the upbringing of our children.
And then a reflection, for the part of the service when the children have gone to their groups, on the place of children in the church family. We are thinking broadly at the moment of growing disciples. And what better place to start than with youngsters.
I turned once again to Matthew 18. Matthew’s Gospel is the Gospel that brings together the teaching of Jesus in blocks. They have a certain symmetry to them. Matthew 5,6,7 the Sermon on the Mount are balanced b y Matthew 23,24,25 – those are all chapters about living life in the kingdom of heaven. Jesus’s way of living for all who follow him to take to heart. The middle block of teaching is in Matthew 13 and is a whole series of parables and stories about what that kingdom is like – how it grows from the tiniest of seeds. And then on either side are two blocks of teaching on what it takes to be disciples of Jesus – in Matthew 10 Jesus commissions the twelve.
And here in Matthew 18 Jesus talks about what it takes to be church. This is the chapter in the Gospels where Jesus uses the word ‘church’ and where he speaks most about the nature of ‘the church’. Here in this chapter, we get that wonderful verse that is so important to us in our understanding of ‘church’ ‘where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.”
So what is ‘church’?
What is at the heart of ‘church’?
Church is very much a grown-up institution for grown-ups. We want to teach children so that they can grow up into the church. And become part of this grown-up institution that we so value. The children’s bit is great. Good fun. But now we can get down to the real business of being church. We are grown-ups together. And this is a grown-up institution for grown-ups.
The whole idea of ‘church’ was something new for those disciples who came to Jesus on this particular occasion.
They knew what the grown-up world was like. There were people you looked up to. And as grown ups you knew who those people were.
So their question was quite a natural one.
At that time The disciples came to Jesus and asked, “who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?”
Natural though there question may have been, the response Jesus gave was not all that they expected. In fact it was not what they expected at all.
And to people who live in the grown up world it comes as rather a shock.
He called a child, whom he put among them, 3and said, ‘Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. 4Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. 5Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.
This turns on its head the grown-up world’s thinking about children.
It really does come as a bit of a shock!
In this church that Jesus is forming, that is later to be thought of as nothing less than the Body of Christ, children are central. In Jesus eyes they are not the church of the future. Our task is not to help them grow up into the grown up world and adopt its values.
It’s the opposite way round. Children are important. They belong. They are part of us. Because they are the most important part of us. They are around constantly as a reminder to us grown ups of what we must be like.
We have to learn from them.
Unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.
Last Sunday night those of us who were at the evening service were privileged to hear one of the most personal sermons that I have ever heard, preached from the heart, in the raw only three months after losing his wife. What’s after death? Was the question Eric Burton addressed. And it was most moving to hear. He gave Diana a transcript of the sermon … it is up on the web site and it will be in the next issue of Highbury News. It is well worth reading. During his sermon he played a song by a young Salvation Army member – it’s on the website – The road is long but I want to reach my destination – I want to see this man called Jesus.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful to catch a glimpse of this Jesus before reaching that destination?
And that is exactly what Jesus offers. And it is here in church.
Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.
That goes right to the heart of the thinking that Eric Burton brought with him from the Youth and Chidlren’s department of the then Congregational Union in England and Wales in 1966 when he moved here to Highbury. It is what he encapsulated in his manifesto for a family church of all ages where there are ‘No Walls Within’. It is the ethos of the church we now belong to here.
Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.
And the opposite holds as well.
Where were you 28 years ago this weekend? I remember it well.
It was the Sunday of the very first visit of a Pope to these islands. There was in 1982 an excited spirit of ecumenism about the church. His visit was greeted with excitement, not least because it was part of a moving of the spirit that was beginning to take a hold in Eastern Europe and here was a Polish Pope. And as he was taking mass, I found myself preaching at a mass in the Roman Catholic Church in the neighbouring village to ours in Yorkshire.
How times have changed!
As one set of walls came down, others took their place – and too many of the new walls have to do with religion. The spirit of ecumenism is harder to find. Animosity has been far more evident. Indifference too. But most awfully of all … the child abuse scandals, not least in the Roman Catholic Church. It is a shame that has tarnished us all … and not just in the church! Other scandals that have emerged in our society as well are to our shame.
Suddenly these words of Jesus take on an ominous significance.
If any of you put a stumbling-block before one of these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for you if a great millstone were fastened around your neck and you were drowned in the depth of the sea. 7Woe to the world because of stumbling-blocks! Occasions for stumbling are bound to come, but woe to the one by whom the stumbling-block comes!
We have to take to heart these words, and couple them with the words earlier. And re-commit ourselves to our children. Not as the church of the future but as the very ones who make the church – the ones in whom we can see the face of Jesus.
So what have we done?
We have a set of guidelines we have followed – every room has windows in the doors – nothing can be done out of sight of others happening past. Each children’s group has a leader – but also a helper. An adult not on their own with a child. Safe from harm guidelines we are reminded of in our Annual Meeting each year. We have an inspection. Procedures to follow in the event of anyone being unhappy with something that they have seen an adult do with a child. All working with children properly checked and prepared. Mary Michael as our named person who is the person to share any concern with. Good practice we seek to follow. All of it common sense. But common sense we commit to putting into practice. A poster that has to be renewed every three years. And on top of that as we shall be hearing in due course ‘the child friendly church’ award we have just passed to show we are ‘child-friendly’.
But it’s not just for the leaders out there.
It is for all of us. We all of us must be on the lookout for our children. We all of us have to be careful, and caring in how we relate to our children.
For us to be welcoming to children is at the heart of what it means to be church.
Out of sight and out of mind? Or in the midst?
One other change in recent years. On the night when he was betrayed Jesus met with his disciples to share in the Passover. One thing that has happened in recent years is that people have made links with Christian things like communion and their Jewish roots. The Jewish Passover is a family gathering – when all the family comes together. The youngest has a key part to play asking a question that prompts the head of the household to recount the story of Passover.
And what of us in communion.
Our of sight and out of mind? Or in the midst?
There are different ways of looking at it. And we have decided not to do it every time, but every other month instead.
But this is a month when the children will come back and be with us in communion. Part of the family. Doing what we as the whole family of Christ’s body, the church in this place do together as a family – taking bread, taking of the cup and remembering this Jesus Christ.
‘Take care that you do not despise one of these little ones; for, I tell you, in heaven their angels continually see the face of my Father in heaven.
* 12What do you think? If a shepherd has a hundred sheep, and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go in search of the one that went astray?
13And if he finds it, truly I tell you, he rejoices over it more than over the ninety-nine that never went astray. 14So it is not the will of your* Father in heaven that one of these little ones should be lost.
I say that neither by way of blame, nor by way of praise.
I say it by way of explanation.
It was Becky who said that we should have a commissioning of all those who help with children’s work. It needs to come towards the beginning of a new session … and when we are all going to be around. And today’s service seemed a good moment to do that.
So, over to you. I then thought of readings we could draw on, a story to tell the children. What better story to tell than of the childhood of Jesus – the value he attached to learning, the place of ‘synagogue’ and ‘temple’ in his upbringing. The importance of church in the upbringing of our children.
And then a reflection, for the part of the service when the children have gone to their groups, on the place of children in the church family. We are thinking broadly at the moment of growing disciples. And what better place to start than with youngsters.
I turned once again to Matthew 18. Matthew’s Gospel is the Gospel that brings together the teaching of Jesus in blocks. They have a certain symmetry to them. Matthew 5,6,7 the Sermon on the Mount are balanced b y Matthew 23,24,25 – those are all chapters about living life in the kingdom of heaven. Jesus’s way of living for all who follow him to take to heart. The middle block of teaching is in Matthew 13 and is a whole series of parables and stories about what that kingdom is like – how it grows from the tiniest of seeds. And then on either side are two blocks of teaching on what it takes to be disciples of Jesus – in Matthew 10 Jesus commissions the twelve.
And here in Matthew 18 Jesus talks about what it takes to be church. This is the chapter in the Gospels where Jesus uses the word ‘church’ and where he speaks most about the nature of ‘the church’. Here in this chapter, we get that wonderful verse that is so important to us in our understanding of ‘church’ ‘where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.”
So what is ‘church’?
What is at the heart of ‘church’?
Church is very much a grown-up institution for grown-ups. We want to teach children so that they can grow up into the church. And become part of this grown-up institution that we so value. The children’s bit is great. Good fun. But now we can get down to the real business of being church. We are grown-ups together. And this is a grown-up institution for grown-ups.
The whole idea of ‘church’ was something new for those disciples who came to Jesus on this particular occasion.
They knew what the grown-up world was like. There were people you looked up to. And as grown ups you knew who those people were.
So their question was quite a natural one.
At that time The disciples came to Jesus and asked, “who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?”
Natural though there question may have been, the response Jesus gave was not all that they expected. In fact it was not what they expected at all.
And to people who live in the grown up world it comes as rather a shock.
He called a child, whom he put among them, 3and said, ‘Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. 4Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. 5Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.
This turns on its head the grown-up world’s thinking about children.
It really does come as a bit of a shock!
In this church that Jesus is forming, that is later to be thought of as nothing less than the Body of Christ, children are central. In Jesus eyes they are not the church of the future. Our task is not to help them grow up into the grown up world and adopt its values.
It’s the opposite way round. Children are important. They belong. They are part of us. Because they are the most important part of us. They are around constantly as a reminder to us grown ups of what we must be like.
We have to learn from them.
Unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.
Last Sunday night those of us who were at the evening service were privileged to hear one of the most personal sermons that I have ever heard, preached from the heart, in the raw only three months after losing his wife. What’s after death? Was the question Eric Burton addressed. And it was most moving to hear. He gave Diana a transcript of the sermon … it is up on the web site and it will be in the next issue of Highbury News. It is well worth reading. During his sermon he played a song by a young Salvation Army member – it’s on the website – The road is long but I want to reach my destination – I want to see this man called Jesus.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful to catch a glimpse of this Jesus before reaching that destination?
And that is exactly what Jesus offers. And it is here in church.
Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.
That goes right to the heart of the thinking that Eric Burton brought with him from the Youth and Chidlren’s department of the then Congregational Union in England and Wales in 1966 when he moved here to Highbury. It is what he encapsulated in his manifesto for a family church of all ages where there are ‘No Walls Within’. It is the ethos of the church we now belong to here.
Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.
And the opposite holds as well.
Where were you 28 years ago this weekend? I remember it well.
It was the Sunday of the very first visit of a Pope to these islands. There was in 1982 an excited spirit of ecumenism about the church. His visit was greeted with excitement, not least because it was part of a moving of the spirit that was beginning to take a hold in Eastern Europe and here was a Polish Pope. And as he was taking mass, I found myself preaching at a mass in the Roman Catholic Church in the neighbouring village to ours in Yorkshire.
How times have changed!
As one set of walls came down, others took their place – and too many of the new walls have to do with religion. The spirit of ecumenism is harder to find. Animosity has been far more evident. Indifference too. But most awfully of all … the child abuse scandals, not least in the Roman Catholic Church. It is a shame that has tarnished us all … and not just in the church! Other scandals that have emerged in our society as well are to our shame.
Suddenly these words of Jesus take on an ominous significance.
If any of you put a stumbling-block before one of these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for you if a great millstone were fastened around your neck and you were drowned in the depth of the sea. 7Woe to the world because of stumbling-blocks! Occasions for stumbling are bound to come, but woe to the one by whom the stumbling-block comes!
We have to take to heart these words, and couple them with the words earlier. And re-commit ourselves to our children. Not as the church of the future but as the very ones who make the church – the ones in whom we can see the face of Jesus.
So what have we done?
We have a set of guidelines we have followed – every room has windows in the doors – nothing can be done out of sight of others happening past. Each children’s group has a leader – but also a helper. An adult not on their own with a child. Safe from harm guidelines we are reminded of in our Annual Meeting each year. We have an inspection. Procedures to follow in the event of anyone being unhappy with something that they have seen an adult do with a child. All working with children properly checked and prepared. Mary Michael as our named person who is the person to share any concern with. Good practice we seek to follow. All of it common sense. But common sense we commit to putting into practice. A poster that has to be renewed every three years. And on top of that as we shall be hearing in due course ‘the child friendly church’ award we have just passed to show we are ‘child-friendly’.
But it’s not just for the leaders out there.
It is for all of us. We all of us must be on the lookout for our children. We all of us have to be careful, and caring in how we relate to our children.
For us to be welcoming to children is at the heart of what it means to be church.
Out of sight and out of mind? Or in the midst?
One other change in recent years. On the night when he was betrayed Jesus met with his disciples to share in the Passover. One thing that has happened in recent years is that people have made links with Christian things like communion and their Jewish roots. The Jewish Passover is a family gathering – when all the family comes together. The youngest has a key part to play asking a question that prompts the head of the household to recount the story of Passover.
And what of us in communion.
Our of sight and out of mind? Or in the midst?
There are different ways of looking at it. And we have decided not to do it every time, but every other month instead.
But this is a month when the children will come back and be with us in communion. Part of the family. Doing what we as the whole family of Christ’s body, the church in this place do together as a family – taking bread, taking of the cup and remembering this Jesus Christ.
‘Take care that you do not despise one of these little ones; for, I tell you, in heaven their angels continually see the face of my Father in heaven.
* 12What do you think? If a shepherd has a hundred sheep, and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go in search of the one that went astray?
13And if he finds it, truly I tell you, he rejoices over it more than over the ninety-nine that never went astray. 14So it is not the will of your* Father in heaven that one of these little ones should be lost.
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Beyond Death? Revelation 22
The Rev Eric Burton was Minister at Highbury from 1966 to 1977.
Now into his 80's, Eric took the services at Highbury on Sunday, 12th September. During the evening service he told us that this was only the second occasion he had directly addressed the subject of what is beyond death in a preaching ministry spanning nearly 70 years.
He had been prompted to preach in this way following the untimely death of his second wife only three months ago.
It was very moving to hear his reflections and good to share them here ...
Meditation – Beyond Death?
Revelation 22
Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. No longer will there be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light. And they will reign for ever and ever. velation 22:1-5
Following Eileen Davison's fatal fall from a horse the media reported on the consequent distribution of parts of her body. Resulting from those transplants, five people are continuing to live with renewed hope of good health. That fact, relatives of the deceased said, "It's the only hope in the chaos.” The only hope?
Since the recent sudden, quite unexpected death of Vivienne, my lovely loving wife, I find more hope in the promises of Jesus in pages of the Bible and words such as these:
"His servants shall serve Him; and they shall see His face; and they shall reign for ever and ever." (Revelation 22. 3,4 & 5).
In sixty seven years of preaching only once have I dared to do so about the nature of life beyond the thin veil we call 'Death'. That surprisingly was way back on the 27th August 1944! The evidence is here (not written in green inkl) Dh, the self assertion of youth!
I am consoled to find that in those same early years I frequently chose Dora Greenwell's lovely hymn for congregations to sing.
“I am not skilled to understand
what God has willed, what God has planned;
I only know at his right hand
stands one who is my saviour.”
To attempt to pry would be useless and perhaps irreverent. For many, a story John Baillie tells in his masterly book ‘And the Life Everlasting', will suffice.
A patient informed by his devotedly Christian doctor that his end was near, asked if he had any conviction as to what awaited him beyond death. His doctor fumbled for an answer. Just then there was a scratching at the door. “Do you hear that?" the doctor asked his patient. “That is my dog I left downstairs. He has grown impatient and come up and hears my voice. He has no idea that is on this side of that door, but he knows I am here. Is that not the same with you? You do not know what lies beyond, but you know your Master is there."
"I know not what the future hath
Of marvel or surprise,
Assured alone that life and death
His mercy underlies."
His Servants shall serve him
While the New Testament is very vague about life beyond death, it does stress most emphatically that it is all religious. "His servants shall serve Him; they shall see His face and His name shall be in their foreheads" … It is all concerned with Him, His glory.
Dr. Leslie Weatherhead used to invite people to imagine two people going to a classical music concert. The first, Adam, trained in music, plays brilliantly, enters into every part of the concert. Zed goes to the concert to please his friend. Bored with music the concert leaves him cold.
At the concert Adam lives in a world of wonder, love and praise. Zed is just alive, that's all. They sit together, between them there is a great gulf. Zed cannot cross it in a moment and be where Adam is. Adam's long training and practice allow him to revel fully in this great musical treat. Poor Zed feels horribly out of it. He cannot respond to music, and at the concert music is everything there is to respond to!
I wonder if dying is something like that: passing into a spiritual world where all the enjoyment is spiritual. We all survive, I think. But whether we live to the full and revel in that life will surely depend on the extent to which we discover the spiritual dimension in this life here. I never think of heaven and hell as two places.
Another of Whittier's hymns ends:
"To turn aside from Thee is hell,
To walk with Thee is heaven."
Jesus said, "I go to prepare a place for you, that where I am you may be also." (John 14.2 & 3) Those words were spoken to the disciples who had followed Jesus and tried to serve him here on earth.
“Some day or other I shall surely come
Where true hearts wait for me;
Then let me learn the language of that home
While here on earth I be:
Lest my poor lips for want of words be dumb
In that high company.”
They shall see His face
The writer of those words had seen it, loved it, lived in the light of it. He set down these five words as being sufficient for all our needs. What a promise! The best of all promises.
I am very fond of a song called 'The Road is Long' written by a Salvation Army teenager. Its repeated refrain and final line is: "I want to see this man called, this man called Jesus, I want to see the risen Lord.”
In what is for me the most satisfying statue of Jesus, Thorwalden's 'Come unto Me', the head is bowed. "If you want to see his face," the sculptor said, "You must get on your knees."
Richard Baxter wrote:
"Come, Lord, when grace has made me meet
Thy blessed face to see;
For if thy work on earth be sweet,
What will thy glory be!
My knowledge of that life is small,
The eye of faith is dim;
But 'tis enough that Christ knows all,
And I shall be with him.“
They shall reign for ever and ever
Two little girls were looking at a painting of Queen Victoria seated on an ornate throne, the orb in one hand and the sceptre in the other, a crown on her head and wearing the most royal robes of state. One girl whispered to the other, "What is she doing,?” The other replied, “She is just reigning:"
With that word 'reign' erase from your mind thoughts of thrones and rulers. Think rather in terms of deliverance from, and victory over doubts, fears, sins and suffering that so hinder our vision while here on earth.
Returning one day from the funeral of his dearly loved son, some friends of the great German theologian Dr. Harnack, wondered what he would do. Do? He went into his study and opened his Bible at John 13.7 and underlined that verse in red ink. Therein that great man found his Christian hope.
It reads: ‘Jesus said, "You do not realise now what I am doing, but later, you will understand."
I have in my possession a very precious scrap of paper.
On it the last words my first dear wife Joy ever wrote: It reads:
“Funeral hymns ….. ‘All my hope on God is founded’
Hope to find one with more about the love of God."
That hymn was sung at the service in which we gave thanksgiving for her life upon earth.
"His servants shall serve him. They will see his face, and they shall reign for ever and ever. " Amen
The sermon over, Eric, moved to the platform and invited Maureen Williams, one of our church members to the lecturn. He introduced the reading she was to share with these moving words:
"We move to a very personal note in this service, which I hope you will allow.
When my second lovely, lovable wife died three months ago we received, and are still receiving, letters and prayers not least from this church at Highbury, and we are so grateful as a family for all the help, in prayer in particular that you have given to us.
Some people have sent us letters, and some sent poems, and one of the most helpful came from someone in this church, and she is going to read those words which she sent in writing to me, and she is going to read them to me now - thank you Maureen."
You can shed tears that she is gone,
or you can smile because she has lived.
You can close your eyes and pray that she'll come back,
or you can open your eyes and see all she's left.
Your heart can be empty because you can't see her,
or you can be full of the love you shared.
You can turn your back on tomorrow and live yesterday,
or you can be happy for tomorrow because of yesterday.
You can remember her only that she is gone,
or you can cherish her memory and let it live on.
You can cry and close your mind,
be empty and turn your back.
Or you can do what she'd want:
smile, open your eyes, love and go on.
Now into his 80's, Eric took the services at Highbury on Sunday, 12th September. During the evening service he told us that this was only the second occasion he had directly addressed the subject of what is beyond death in a preaching ministry spanning nearly 70 years.
He had been prompted to preach in this way following the untimely death of his second wife only three months ago.
It was very moving to hear his reflections and good to share them here ...
Meditation – Beyond Death?
Revelation 22
Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. No longer will there be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light. And they will reign for ever and ever. velation 22:1-5
Following Eileen Davison's fatal fall from a horse the media reported on the consequent distribution of parts of her body. Resulting from those transplants, five people are continuing to live with renewed hope of good health. That fact, relatives of the deceased said, "It's the only hope in the chaos.” The only hope?
Since the recent sudden, quite unexpected death of Vivienne, my lovely loving wife, I find more hope in the promises of Jesus in pages of the Bible and words such as these:
"His servants shall serve Him; and they shall see His face; and they shall reign for ever and ever." (Revelation 22. 3,4 & 5).
In sixty seven years of preaching only once have I dared to do so about the nature of life beyond the thin veil we call 'Death'. That surprisingly was way back on the 27th August 1944! The evidence is here (not written in green inkl) Dh, the self assertion of youth!
I am consoled to find that in those same early years I frequently chose Dora Greenwell's lovely hymn for congregations to sing.
“I am not skilled to understand
what God has willed, what God has planned;
I only know at his right hand
stands one who is my saviour.”
To attempt to pry would be useless and perhaps irreverent. For many, a story John Baillie tells in his masterly book ‘And the Life Everlasting', will suffice.
A patient informed by his devotedly Christian doctor that his end was near, asked if he had any conviction as to what awaited him beyond death. His doctor fumbled for an answer. Just then there was a scratching at the door. “Do you hear that?" the doctor asked his patient. “That is my dog I left downstairs. He has grown impatient and come up and hears my voice. He has no idea that is on this side of that door, but he knows I am here. Is that not the same with you? You do not know what lies beyond, but you know your Master is there."
"I know not what the future hath
Of marvel or surprise,
Assured alone that life and death
His mercy underlies."
His Servants shall serve him
While the New Testament is very vague about life beyond death, it does stress most emphatically that it is all religious. "His servants shall serve Him; they shall see His face and His name shall be in their foreheads" … It is all concerned with Him, His glory.
Dr. Leslie Weatherhead used to invite people to imagine two people going to a classical music concert. The first, Adam, trained in music, plays brilliantly, enters into every part of the concert. Zed goes to the concert to please his friend. Bored with music the concert leaves him cold.
At the concert Adam lives in a world of wonder, love and praise. Zed is just alive, that's all. They sit together, between them there is a great gulf. Zed cannot cross it in a moment and be where Adam is. Adam's long training and practice allow him to revel fully in this great musical treat. Poor Zed feels horribly out of it. He cannot respond to music, and at the concert music is everything there is to respond to!
I wonder if dying is something like that: passing into a spiritual world where all the enjoyment is spiritual. We all survive, I think. But whether we live to the full and revel in that life will surely depend on the extent to which we discover the spiritual dimension in this life here. I never think of heaven and hell as two places.
Another of Whittier's hymns ends:
"To turn aside from Thee is hell,
To walk with Thee is heaven."
Jesus said, "I go to prepare a place for you, that where I am you may be also." (John 14.2 & 3) Those words were spoken to the disciples who had followed Jesus and tried to serve him here on earth.
“Some day or other I shall surely come
Where true hearts wait for me;
Then let me learn the language of that home
While here on earth I be:
Lest my poor lips for want of words be dumb
In that high company.”
They shall see His face
The writer of those words had seen it, loved it, lived in the light of it. He set down these five words as being sufficient for all our needs. What a promise! The best of all promises.
I am very fond of a song called 'The Road is Long' written by a Salvation Army teenager. Its repeated refrain and final line is: "I want to see this man called, this man called Jesus, I want to see the risen Lord.”
In what is for me the most satisfying statue of Jesus, Thorwalden's 'Come unto Me', the head is bowed. "If you want to see his face," the sculptor said, "You must get on your knees."
Richard Baxter wrote:
"Come, Lord, when grace has made me meet
Thy blessed face to see;
For if thy work on earth be sweet,
What will thy glory be!
My knowledge of that life is small,
The eye of faith is dim;
But 'tis enough that Christ knows all,
And I shall be with him.“
They shall reign for ever and ever
Two little girls were looking at a painting of Queen Victoria seated on an ornate throne, the orb in one hand and the sceptre in the other, a crown on her head and wearing the most royal robes of state. One girl whispered to the other, "What is she doing,?” The other replied, “She is just reigning:"
With that word 'reign' erase from your mind thoughts of thrones and rulers. Think rather in terms of deliverance from, and victory over doubts, fears, sins and suffering that so hinder our vision while here on earth.
Returning one day from the funeral of his dearly loved son, some friends of the great German theologian Dr. Harnack, wondered what he would do. Do? He went into his study and opened his Bible at John 13.7 and underlined that verse in red ink. Therein that great man found his Christian hope.
It reads: ‘Jesus said, "You do not realise now what I am doing, but later, you will understand."
I have in my possession a very precious scrap of paper.
On it the last words my first dear wife Joy ever wrote: It reads:
“Funeral hymns ….. ‘All my hope on God is founded’
Hope to find one with more about the love of God."
That hymn was sung at the service in which we gave thanksgiving for her life upon earth.
"His servants shall serve him. They will see his face, and they shall reign for ever and ever. " Amen
The sermon over, Eric, moved to the platform and invited Maureen Williams, one of our church members to the lecturn. He introduced the reading she was to share with these moving words:
"We move to a very personal note in this service, which I hope you will allow.
When my second lovely, lovable wife died three months ago we received, and are still receiving, letters and prayers not least from this church at Highbury, and we are so grateful as a family for all the help, in prayer in particular that you have given to us.
Some people have sent us letters, and some sent poems, and one of the most helpful came from someone in this church, and she is going to read those words which she sent in writing to me, and she is going to read them to me now - thank you Maureen."
You can shed tears that she is gone,
or you can smile because she has lived.
You can close your eyes and pray that she'll come back,
or you can open your eyes and see all she's left.
Your heart can be empty because you can't see her,
or you can be full of the love you shared.
You can turn your back on tomorrow and live yesterday,
or you can be happy for tomorrow because of yesterday.
You can remember her only that she is gone,
or you can cherish her memory and let it live on.
You can cry and close your mind,
be empty and turn your back.
Or you can do what she'd want:
smile, open your eyes, love and go on.
Sunday, September 5, 2010
What it takes to be a disciple
Where’s it all been leading up to?
It has been fascinating re-visiting Peter’s story for the Holiday Club this year. If ever there was an example of the Christian faith as a journey then Peter’s story surely has to be it.
What struck me forcibly this time as I was telling the story again was the way in which Peter is grappling with faith, what God means to him in the context of a very troubled, cruel world.
That first encounter with Jesus on the shore of the sea of Galilee comes hard on the heels of the arrest of John the Baptist who had aroused such hopes among so many in the stand he had taken against the powers the be. His imprisonment put paid to those hopes.
Peter was working in an industry, and fishing was very much an industry, on the Sea of Galilee that suffered massive exploitation on the part of the Roman powers that be that had been instrumental in having John the Baptist arrestetd.
Leave your nets was an invitation to follow a different path and discover a different way, God’s way of building society. It was good news that Jesus had to share about the kingdom of God, about God’s rule and the difference it would make.
The teaching of Jesus was electrifying, the healing he brought into people’s lives, not least into Peter’s very own home, was remarkable. There came a point when Peter was sure he was the one, the Messiah, the Son of the Living God.
He really was Peter, the Rock, and on that faith Jesus would build his church.
But he hadn’t really got it.
Peter had a hang-up.
His hang-up was a hang-up that so many people have.
Since my return from holiday, I found myself put on the spot by someone of a scientific way of thinking, who had exactly the same hang-up.
Peter could not get his mind around suffering. It was a major thing for him. When Jesus said to him that he would have to suffer, to the point of an agonizing death on the cross. That was simply too much for Peter.
That is not possible.
It did not square with peter’s understanding of God.
How is it possible to believe in God in a world of suffering.
That was the question put to me. And it is a massive question. It doesn’t have any easy answers. I found myself as the conversation came to an end – pointing to the reflections I had made in the August issue of Highbury News. In anticipation of Greenbelt I had recalled one of the speakers who had made a big impression on me.
Richard Rohr a Franciscan had reflected on the way Jesus refused to give cut and dried answers to the questions he was posed. As often as not Jesus responded to questions with more questions. But those questions were the kind that made people think. Richard Rohr suggested that we should not be for ever on the look out for answers, but for answering persons. People who are prepared to share.
Jesus was one of those. Richard Rohr did not disappoint at Greenbelt. The two talks I went to of his I found an inspiration.
In one he came to this massive problem that so many, Peter included, have such hang-ups over. This is the world as it is. We may wish the world were different, but this is the world. It is a world where there is untold suffering. Suffering be it in the animal kingdom, in the planet itself, in human experience is part of the warp and weft of life itself.
Richard Rohr pointed back to Jesus – it was the Jesus that Peter encountered.
Peter sensed Jesus was the one. The one who he and his people had been waiting for, the one who would open up God in a new way, the one who would usher in God’s rule, God’s kingdom, the one who through that electrifying teaching, in that healing would make such a difference in people’s lives.
Peter stuck with Jesus. And Peter plumbed the depths of agonising suffering. He tried to stick with Jesus, lied through his teeth, and claimed never to have known him … and he is reduced to bitter tears.
It would have been wonderful – and Peter with his hang-up over suffering, longed for it to be so – if it had been possible for Jesus to avoid that suffering, for him to be able to avoid the tears.
But something happens through the suffering. It is perverse that it is through the suffering, that Peter comes to encounter something beyond in the risen Christ. And the risen Christ three times counters Peter’s three denials – do you love me?
The cruel world remains.
It is not changed.
But Peter now discovers a strength to enable him to live in that world and to bear withness to the new way of life Jesus has opened up – that strength is the unseen, yet very real power of God, the Holy Spirit.
Now Peter seeks to live out Jesus’ way – he echoes the teaching, he brings healing to people whose lives are hurting.
And Peter falls foul of the powers that be. He is arrestetd by the very Herpod who had imprisoned and executed John the Baptist, tried Jesus, and now determined on the very anniversary of Jesus’ trial and execution to have Peter brought out to face the crowd … and meet his death.
Imprisoned, Peter prays, and knows that the followers of Jesus are also praying. And he is delivered.
But still he has not reached the end of his journey.
The base of that Roman power in what we have come to know as the Holy Land was Caesarea – a typical, Roman city on the shores of the Mediterranean. The hub of Rome’s trade with the middle East. The base for the Roman power.
It is one step too far for Peter to welcome, let alone reach out with love and blessing to the Roman occupiers. To heap insult upon insult the creaters in that sheet which in his vision he sees lowered from heaven are the very animals that are the staple of the Roman diet, not least in banquest such as that one at which John the Baptist was executed. The very foods good Jews knew should not be eaten.
And the voice of God said to Peter, rise up , kill and eat.
And when he awoke it was a Centurion of the Italian cohort from Caesarea that Peter found himself sharing the love of God in Christ with.
I now know, he said, that God shows no partiality.
Where’s it all leading?
Where’s it all going?
It’s after this that Peter writes his letter. It’s a round-robin letter to followers of Jesus anywhere and everywhere, especially those scattered throughout the Roman empire.
Where’s it all heading.
There’s a wonderful word he reaches here.
The word ‘finally’.
Gives us a clue.
Finally, all of you, have unity of spirit, sympathy, love for one another, a tender heart, and a humble mind.
This has to be one of those treasured moments in Peter’s story. It’s what his life story has been building up to.
This is what it takes if we want to be true to Jesus … and true to living out the kind of life that Peter learned about.
Be of one mind, have unity of spirit. We who follow Jesus need to stick together. I know that’s easier said than done … but this is a touch stone. People are people, and we are no less prone to falling out.
But if a church family becomes fractious, that’s a warning – it shouldn’t be like that. We should have unity of spirit. That goes to the heart of our understanding of church. WE invite all who belong to come along to our Church Meeting. Some think of it as a very democratic exercise – where we vote. But that’s not how we should think of it. The purpose of our meeting together is to seek out what we sense to be the mind of Christ for us. Always, we should seek God’s support that we can he of one mind, and have unity of spirit.
I followed Thursday night’s church meeting with a meeting of Cheltenham’s church leaders at which we welcomed the new Archdeacon of Cheltenham and shared our thoughts about churches of Cheltenham working together. I introduced myself as being the one who had been longer in Cheltenham than any other … to be contradicted by Ally Bates who had arrived with her husband in ministry at what was then the New Life Church – in 1987. We found ourelves reflecting on the need to seek that oneness of spirit, that mind of Christ together as churches. And that was something special to be doing that here at Highbury.
But then comes another insight of Peter’s – have ‘sympathy’; lover for one another, a tender heart, and a humble mind.
Sympathy is a word that trips off the tongue and is so easy to use. But as Peter uses it, it is a strong word. It literally means, suffer with each other.
Have a tender heart – literally means – have compassion to the point at which you feel an ache in your gut, in your stomach for each other.
There is no answer to that question that was such a hang-up for Peter.
But in a suffering world there is a response. And it is the response that Peter learned not from any easy answers that Jesus gave, but through experiencing and sharing in suffering with Jesus.
That response involves coming alongside those who suffer, sharing that suffering with them, carrying it together, in love for another, the kind of love that is gut-wrenching and filled with compassion.
And of all this in humility.
Be very wary of those for whom religion is full of the word ‘no’ and full of anger at those who have not got it. That was another thought form Richard Rohr. And another lesson learned by Peter.
Once he had been so prepared to think of himself as different from.
But now he urges a different response to the evil he saw around.
Do not repay evil for evil or abuse for abuse;
On the contrary repay with a blessing. It is for this that you were called – that you might inherit a blessing.
That word blessing is a fascinating one. It literally means – speak well of someone.
What does it mean to bless someone. It means when something awful is done to you by someone – don’t simply dwell on that and give as good as you get. Instead look for something of God in that person, and as you do tat find something good to say of that person. And that will become the blessing you give and the blessing you receive.
Where does it all end?
We don’t know for certain what happened to Peter.
Every indication is that he did in the end face the very same treatment at the hands of the Roman powers that be that Jesus had received.
There is no escaping the suffering of our world. But there is a way of living that Jesus opens up for us, that enables us to live in that world in a different way, and then enter into an inheritance that has been waiting for us that nothing can destroy.
It has been fascinating re-visiting Peter’s story for the Holiday Club this year. If ever there was an example of the Christian faith as a journey then Peter’s story surely has to be it.
What struck me forcibly this time as I was telling the story again was the way in which Peter is grappling with faith, what God means to him in the context of a very troubled, cruel world.
That first encounter with Jesus on the shore of the sea of Galilee comes hard on the heels of the arrest of John the Baptist who had aroused such hopes among so many in the stand he had taken against the powers the be. His imprisonment put paid to those hopes.
Peter was working in an industry, and fishing was very much an industry, on the Sea of Galilee that suffered massive exploitation on the part of the Roman powers that be that had been instrumental in having John the Baptist arrestetd.
Leave your nets was an invitation to follow a different path and discover a different way, God’s way of building society. It was good news that Jesus had to share about the kingdom of God, about God’s rule and the difference it would make.
The teaching of Jesus was electrifying, the healing he brought into people’s lives, not least into Peter’s very own home, was remarkable. There came a point when Peter was sure he was the one, the Messiah, the Son of the Living God.
He really was Peter, the Rock, and on that faith Jesus would build his church.
But he hadn’t really got it.
Peter had a hang-up.
His hang-up was a hang-up that so many people have.
Since my return from holiday, I found myself put on the spot by someone of a scientific way of thinking, who had exactly the same hang-up.
Peter could not get his mind around suffering. It was a major thing for him. When Jesus said to him that he would have to suffer, to the point of an agonizing death on the cross. That was simply too much for Peter.
That is not possible.
It did not square with peter’s understanding of God.
How is it possible to believe in God in a world of suffering.
That was the question put to me. And it is a massive question. It doesn’t have any easy answers. I found myself as the conversation came to an end – pointing to the reflections I had made in the August issue of Highbury News. In anticipation of Greenbelt I had recalled one of the speakers who had made a big impression on me.
Richard Rohr a Franciscan had reflected on the way Jesus refused to give cut and dried answers to the questions he was posed. As often as not Jesus responded to questions with more questions. But those questions were the kind that made people think. Richard Rohr suggested that we should not be for ever on the look out for answers, but for answering persons. People who are prepared to share.
Jesus was one of those. Richard Rohr did not disappoint at Greenbelt. The two talks I went to of his I found an inspiration.
In one he came to this massive problem that so many, Peter included, have such hang-ups over. This is the world as it is. We may wish the world were different, but this is the world. It is a world where there is untold suffering. Suffering be it in the animal kingdom, in the planet itself, in human experience is part of the warp and weft of life itself.
Richard Rohr pointed back to Jesus – it was the Jesus that Peter encountered.
Peter sensed Jesus was the one. The one who he and his people had been waiting for, the one who would open up God in a new way, the one who would usher in God’s rule, God’s kingdom, the one who through that electrifying teaching, in that healing would make such a difference in people’s lives.
Peter stuck with Jesus. And Peter plumbed the depths of agonising suffering. He tried to stick with Jesus, lied through his teeth, and claimed never to have known him … and he is reduced to bitter tears.
It would have been wonderful – and Peter with his hang-up over suffering, longed for it to be so – if it had been possible for Jesus to avoid that suffering, for him to be able to avoid the tears.
But something happens through the suffering. It is perverse that it is through the suffering, that Peter comes to encounter something beyond in the risen Christ. And the risen Christ three times counters Peter’s three denials – do you love me?
The cruel world remains.
It is not changed.
But Peter now discovers a strength to enable him to live in that world and to bear withness to the new way of life Jesus has opened up – that strength is the unseen, yet very real power of God, the Holy Spirit.
Now Peter seeks to live out Jesus’ way – he echoes the teaching, he brings healing to people whose lives are hurting.
And Peter falls foul of the powers that be. He is arrestetd by the very Herpod who had imprisoned and executed John the Baptist, tried Jesus, and now determined on the very anniversary of Jesus’ trial and execution to have Peter brought out to face the crowd … and meet his death.
Imprisoned, Peter prays, and knows that the followers of Jesus are also praying. And he is delivered.
But still he has not reached the end of his journey.
The base of that Roman power in what we have come to know as the Holy Land was Caesarea – a typical, Roman city on the shores of the Mediterranean. The hub of Rome’s trade with the middle East. The base for the Roman power.
It is one step too far for Peter to welcome, let alone reach out with love and blessing to the Roman occupiers. To heap insult upon insult the creaters in that sheet which in his vision he sees lowered from heaven are the very animals that are the staple of the Roman diet, not least in banquest such as that one at which John the Baptist was executed. The very foods good Jews knew should not be eaten.
And the voice of God said to Peter, rise up , kill and eat.
And when he awoke it was a Centurion of the Italian cohort from Caesarea that Peter found himself sharing the love of God in Christ with.
I now know, he said, that God shows no partiality.
Where’s it all leading?
Where’s it all going?
It’s after this that Peter writes his letter. It’s a round-robin letter to followers of Jesus anywhere and everywhere, especially those scattered throughout the Roman empire.
Where’s it all heading.
There’s a wonderful word he reaches here.
The word ‘finally’.
Gives us a clue.
Finally, all of you, have unity of spirit, sympathy, love for one another, a tender heart, and a humble mind.
This has to be one of those treasured moments in Peter’s story. It’s what his life story has been building up to.
This is what it takes if we want to be true to Jesus … and true to living out the kind of life that Peter learned about.
Be of one mind, have unity of spirit. We who follow Jesus need to stick together. I know that’s easier said than done … but this is a touch stone. People are people, and we are no less prone to falling out.
But if a church family becomes fractious, that’s a warning – it shouldn’t be like that. We should have unity of spirit. That goes to the heart of our understanding of church. WE invite all who belong to come along to our Church Meeting. Some think of it as a very democratic exercise – where we vote. But that’s not how we should think of it. The purpose of our meeting together is to seek out what we sense to be the mind of Christ for us. Always, we should seek God’s support that we can he of one mind, and have unity of spirit.
I followed Thursday night’s church meeting with a meeting of Cheltenham’s church leaders at which we welcomed the new Archdeacon of Cheltenham and shared our thoughts about churches of Cheltenham working together. I introduced myself as being the one who had been longer in Cheltenham than any other … to be contradicted by Ally Bates who had arrived with her husband in ministry at what was then the New Life Church – in 1987. We found ourelves reflecting on the need to seek that oneness of spirit, that mind of Christ together as churches. And that was something special to be doing that here at Highbury.
But then comes another insight of Peter’s – have ‘sympathy’; lover for one another, a tender heart, and a humble mind.
Sympathy is a word that trips off the tongue and is so easy to use. But as Peter uses it, it is a strong word. It literally means, suffer with each other.
Have a tender heart – literally means – have compassion to the point at which you feel an ache in your gut, in your stomach for each other.
There is no answer to that question that was such a hang-up for Peter.
But in a suffering world there is a response. And it is the response that Peter learned not from any easy answers that Jesus gave, but through experiencing and sharing in suffering with Jesus.
That response involves coming alongside those who suffer, sharing that suffering with them, carrying it together, in love for another, the kind of love that is gut-wrenching and filled with compassion.
And of all this in humility.
Be very wary of those for whom religion is full of the word ‘no’ and full of anger at those who have not got it. That was another thought form Richard Rohr. And another lesson learned by Peter.
Once he had been so prepared to think of himself as different from.
But now he urges a different response to the evil he saw around.
Do not repay evil for evil or abuse for abuse;
On the contrary repay with a blessing. It is for this that you were called – that you might inherit a blessing.
That word blessing is a fascinating one. It literally means – speak well of someone.
What does it mean to bless someone. It means when something awful is done to you by someone – don’t simply dwell on that and give as good as you get. Instead look for something of God in that person, and as you do tat find something good to say of that person. And that will become the blessing you give and the blessing you receive.
Where does it all end?
We don’t know for certain what happened to Peter.
Every indication is that he did in the end face the very same treatment at the hands of the Roman powers that be that Jesus had received.
There is no escaping the suffering of our world. But there is a way of living that Jesus opens up for us, that enables us to live in that world in a different way, and then enter into an inheritance that has been waiting for us that nothing can destroy.
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Take heart!
In our Holiday Club with St Luke's we have been having fun in Rocky’s Plaice, a fish restaurant a little bit like Fawlty Towers, and exploring the story of Simon Peter, the fisherman who was given the name ‘Peter’, the rock by Jesus.
Jesus turned to the disciples and asked them, “Who do you say that I am?”
Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God.”
And Jesus answered him, “On this rock I will build my church.”
And so our service begins in a spirit of praise and worship as Hy-Spirit lead us in singing …
A time of Praise and Worship with Hy-Spirit
Prayer – led by Robert …
The Lord’s Prayer
Psalm 95 – the congregation – led by Robert
Jesus called Peter ‘the Rock’ – often in the Psalms God is seen as the very rock of our salvation. I am going to read one of those psalms, Psalm 95, when I say the words
O come, let us sing to the Lord;
we all say together the words in capitals ---
LET US MAKE A JOYFUL NOISE TO THE ROCK OF OUR SALVATION!
We begin with that response …
O come, let us sing to the Lord;
---
LET US MAKE A JOYFUL NOISE TO THE ROCK OF OUR SALVATION!
---
Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving; let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise!
---
O come, let us sing to the Lord;
---
LET US MAKE A JOYFUL NOISE TO THE ROCK OF OUR SALVATION!
---
For the Lord is a great God, and a great King above all gods.---
In his hand are the depths of the earth; the heights of the mountains are his also.
---
O come, let us sing to the Lord;
---
LET US MAKE A JOYFUL NOISE TO THE ROCK OF OUR SALVATION!
---
The sea is his, for he made it, and the dry land, which his hands have formed.
O come, let us worship and bow down, let us kneel before the Lord, our Maker!
---
O come, let us sing to the Lord;
---
LET US MAKE A JOYFUL NOISE TO THE ROCK OF OUR SALVATION!
---
For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand. O that today we would listen to his voice!
---
O come, let us sing to the Lord;
---
LET US MAKE A JOYFUL NOISE TO THE ROCK OF OUR SALVATION!
At the heart of the faith we share is the conviction that Jesus Christ is none other than the Rock of our salvation … and so let us join in singing our next hymn …
Hymn: In Christ alone, my hope is found, he is my light, my strength, my song
Rocky’s Plaice – the Story – Becky
Grace
Recap the story
Winnie – the sketch
Song: Jesus is the Rock
Peter’s Story
The Memory Verses
Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.
Jesus turned to the disciples and asked them, “Who do you say that I am?”
Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God.”
And Jesus answered him, “On this rock I will build my church.”
And so our service begins in a spirit of praise and worship as Hy-Spirit lead us in singing …
A time of Praise and Worship with Hy-Spirit
Prayer – led by Robert …
The Lord’s Prayer
Psalm 95 – the congregation – led by Robert
Jesus called Peter ‘the Rock’ – often in the Psalms God is seen as the very rock of our salvation. I am going to read one of those psalms, Psalm 95, when I say the words
O come, let us sing to the Lord;
we all say together the words in capitals ---
LET US MAKE A JOYFUL NOISE TO THE ROCK OF OUR SALVATION!
We begin with that response …
O come, let us sing to the Lord;
---
LET US MAKE A JOYFUL NOISE TO THE ROCK OF OUR SALVATION!
---
Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving; let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise!
---
O come, let us sing to the Lord;
---
LET US MAKE A JOYFUL NOISE TO THE ROCK OF OUR SALVATION!
---
For the Lord is a great God, and a great King above all gods.---
In his hand are the depths of the earth; the heights of the mountains are his also.
---
O come, let us sing to the Lord;
---
LET US MAKE A JOYFUL NOISE TO THE ROCK OF OUR SALVATION!
---
The sea is his, for he made it, and the dry land, which his hands have formed.
O come, let us worship and bow down, let us kneel before the Lord, our Maker!
---
O come, let us sing to the Lord;
---
LET US MAKE A JOYFUL NOISE TO THE ROCK OF OUR SALVATION!
---
For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand. O that today we would listen to his voice!
---
O come, let us sing to the Lord;
---
LET US MAKE A JOYFUL NOISE TO THE ROCK OF OUR SALVATION!
At the heart of the faith we share is the conviction that Jesus Christ is none other than the Rock of our salvation … and so let us join in singing our next hymn …
Hymn: In Christ alone, my hope is found, he is my light, my strength, my song
Rocky’s Plaice – the Story – Becky
Grace
Recap the story
Winnie – the sketch
Song: Jesus is the Rock
Peter’s Story
The Memory Verses
Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.
Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid!
I will be with you always to the end of the age
Rocky’s Plaice – the song
Talk – Richard
Jesus is the rock – he calls Peter the rock – then Peter turns to the stones – and suggests we are all living stones, held together by the corner stone – Jesus himself.
Lorraine is going to read some of the words Peter shared in a letter he wrote …
Reading: 1 Peter 2:1-5 and 9-10 - Lorraine
Rocky’s Plaice – the song
Talk – Richard
Jesus is the rock – he calls Peter the rock – then Peter turns to the stones – and suggests we are all living stones, held together by the corner stone – Jesus himself.
Lorraine is going to read some of the words Peter shared in a letter he wrote …
Reading: 1 Peter 2:1-5 and 9-10 - Lorraine
Rid yourselves, then, of all evil; no more lying or hypocrisy or jealousy or insulting language. 2 Be like newborn babies, always thirsty for the pure spiritual milk, so that by drinking it you may grow up and be saved. 3 As the scripture says, “You have found out for yourselves how kind the Lord is.”
4 Come to the Lord, the living stone rejected by people as worthless but chosen by God as valuable. 5 Come as living stones, and let yourselves be used in building the spiritual temple, where you will serve as holy priests to offer spiritual and acceptable sacrifices to God through Jesus Christ.
But you are the chosen race, the King's priests, the holy nation, God's own people, chosen to proclaim the wonderful acts of God, who called you out of darkness into his own marvellous light.
At one time you were not God's people, but now you are his people; at one time you did not know God's mercy, but now you have received his mercy.
At one time you were not God's people, but now you are his people; at one time you did not know God's mercy, but now you have received his mercy.
How can we be living stones?
Those three verses contain an invitation and then wonderful words of promise.
Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.
We follow Jesus … not for our own reward, but for the sake of other people.
Twice yesterday at Greenbelt African Ubuntu theology was mentioned.
Once, in a powerful and moving talk about dementia by a superb speaker from Aberdeen university, John Swinton – where James Gregory is studying - And the second time from Solomuza Babuza, a Lutheran minister.
We live in an individualistic society that owes so much to the European way of thinking that goes all the way back to Descartes – I think, therefore I am.
We live in an individualistic society that owes so much to the European way of thinking that goes all the way back to Descartes – I think, therefore I am.
All too often that has led us to think of Christianity as all to do with the individual and individual salvation.
Africa thinks rather of people collectively – Ubuntu theology.
Africa thinks rather of people collectively – Ubuntu theology.
I am because you are.
Jesus doesn’t say Follow me and I will give you the best reward you can ever imagine. Jesus says,
Jesus doesn’t say Follow me and I will give you the best reward you can ever imagine. Jesus says,
Follow me and I will make you fish for people.
Follow me and you will live your life not for your own sake, but for the sake of other people.
How can we do that?
By holding on to two promises.
In the stormy moments, especially when we venture to do something that’s scary or that is on the verge of defeating let’s see Jesus stretching out his hand to us, taking hold of us securely, and saying
How can we do that?
By holding on to two promises.
In the stormy moments, especially when we venture to do something that’s scary or that is on the verge of defeating let’s see Jesus stretching out his hand to us, taking hold of us securely, and saying
Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.
And in those moments when we feel alone, let’s hold on to that promise of Jesus …
And in those moments when we feel alone, let’s hold on to that promise of Jesus …
I am with you always to the end of the age.
introducing Jonathan
Happy Birthday to Sybil
Prayers – Yvonne
Hymn: Amazing Grace
Through every danger, trial and snare
I have already come;
his grace has brought me safe thus far,
and grace will lead me home.
Closing Prayer and Blessing
Thank you, Lord, for giving us Winnie
Thank you, Lord, for giving us Rocky
For the games we’ve played
For the friends we’ve made
Thank you, Lord, for giving us fun
May God’s joy be in our hearts
May God’s peace be in our world
May God’s love be known between us
And the blessing of God,
Father, Son and Holy Spirit
Be with us now and for ever more.
Amen
Sunday, August 22, 2010
Faith, hope and love
What do you make of your mind?
Do you find sometimes that your mind is thinking about so many different things that it’s a bit like the spring in an old pocket watch – you wind it up to the point at which if it gets wound up any more it will reach its breaking point. You come to the point at which you are so wound up you need to unwind. That’s where taking a break, taking time out, a day to unwind. And that’s the value I have found over the years, not least this year of a good holiday. Time to unwind.
Change the analogy to a computer that has reached its capacity, and your mind is overloaded. It can’t take any more. Or maybe a racing analogy … and your mind is going to spin off.
It’s good to take time out, to clear out the cobwebs.
Then there comes a point when you need to gather up your thoughts.
There’s the time to get your mind into gear … and get it thinking straight.
Isn’t English full of vivid pictures?
Getting into gear, clearing out the cobwebs, wound up, unwind.
The mind mattered for Peter.
“Therefore, prepare your minds,” he writes in 1 Peter 1:13.
He was the kind of person who needed to get his mind around things. There was something about the figure of Jesus that had an immediate impact … Peter, or Simon as he was known among the fishermen on the northern shores of the sea of Galilee, left his nets and followed Jesus.
Jesus saw how important it was for Simon Peter and all the others to learn, to be ‘learners’, to be ‘disciples’. His teaching had an authority to it that impressed Simon Peter and the others – the stories he told, the way he explained things, the new way he opened up for them to follow. It made sense. The way you could wrap up all the law and the prophets in the one simple thought – do to others what you would have others do to you.
Peter thought he had got his mind round it when Jesus asked the disciples who people were saying he was, You are the Christ, the Messiah, the one we’ve been waiting for.
But Jesus knew Peter hadn’t got his mind round it enough – there were hard lessons to learn. Peter thought the Messiah would overturn the Roman power … Jesus came to open up a way through suffering for everyone to follow, a way that would take him to the cross, but beyond the cross to resurrection.
That was something Peter could not get his mind round.
Then three times he denied Jesus, and he wept bitterly.
What was going on? Too much for his mind to take.
And then back on the shore the risen Christ asked him three times, Do you love me?
The waiting over, that unseen yet very real power of God in Christ was felt by Peter – and then he got his mind into gear and rushing down the steps and on to the streets of Jerusalem on the Day of Pentecost Peter it was who made sense of all that was happening and could see what Jesus meant.
But he still needed his mind stretching even more – he couldn’t take it in that this love of God in Christ was actually for everyone – Roman as much as Jew … and it took a vivid vision he had and a remarkable encounter with a Roman centurion to change the way his mind saw things.
He was very conscious of the way the followers of Jesus had been scattered far and wide and he wanted to share his thoughts, his inspiration with them.
And so it was he took pen to paper and this letter addressed to the exiles of the dispersion. Some have thought it unlikely that Peter could write in Greek. But he was one who was able to use his mind. Galilee was occupied by the Romans, he was in a key industry that was supplying the occupation with the fish they needed for their lavish life-style. Greek was the common language of the Eastern half of the Roman Empire. Peter not only spoke Aramaic, albeit with a north country Galilean accent, he could also read Hebrew as a devout Jew, and speak and indeed write in Greek. In all likelihood he would have got by in Latin as well.
He begins with that sweeping summing up of the faith that means the world to him.
And now he comes to that point at which he wants all who read what he has to say to ‘prepare their minds’.
The Greek he is writing in, no less than English, has its vivid way of speaking. And this is one moment when that vivid language comes into its own.
What he writes is this:
“Gird up the loins of your minds.”
Quite a vivid picture. A very basic, very physical image.
Gird up the loins of your minds.
What’s he getting at?
When you read what Peter has to say he has got his mind round who this Jesus is, what that means for his understanding of the world and of God. It’s taken Peter time … but I sense he wants us to get our minds round that too.
Through the teaching of Jesus, the love Jesus showed throughout his life, the death he shared and his resurrection Peter is convinced he has a window on to the God of creation.
In verse 20 he writes of Jesus Christ, He was destined before the foundation of the world, but was revealed at the end of the ages for the sake of all Peter is writing to … us included. Through him you have come to trust in God, who raised him from the dead, and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are set on God.
I believe it’s important to get your mind round such things. I find myself in awe of the wonder of the world, and I seek to make sense of it. I am drawn to the insights of cosmologists, evolutionists – and though no evidence can prove the existence of God, I am passionate that believing in God makes sense in the world we live in. It is believing. It is faith. But it is worthy of the best of minds and it makes sense.
Martin Rees, Astronomer Royal, President of the Royal Society, comes to the end of his fascinating account of the six equations that make sense of the universe and he concludes there are three positions that can reasonably held, that in his view ‘make sense’ It just happened that way, this universe is one of a multiplicity of universes, a multiverse, or that’s how it was created by God. What is important to me is not that Martin Rees should subscribe to that view, but that he respects it as a view that can be reasonably held and that makes sense of the world we see.
More than that I think it is important to make sense of what it is that Jesus opens up about God – in verses 18 and 19, Peter homes in on something remarkable that came across to him through the death of Jesus. It was somehow because Jesus came alongside humanity at its bleakest, at its most God-forsaken, on the cross – ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ and at that point brought forgiving love to the fore - ‘Father, forgive them …’ – that Jesus has become for Peter the one makes real in the lives of each of us the reality that the God of creation is the God of love who forgives and renews. Peter makes sense of that against the background of the world he knew of the Hebrew Scriptures and speaks of Jesus as that precious lamb who takes away the sin of the world.
This is the God of our faith – the God of immense, forgiving, love.
Then in verse 21 he moves beyond the death, to share the importance of resurrection. Christ comes alongside us and all of humanity, shares our suffering – so that at that point at which we are conscious of that suffering and feeling its pain ourselves, we know that we are not alone – God is there with us in the midst of it.
And the suffering, the pain, the death does not have the last word. Beyond is resurrection. It cannot be proved – but Peter knew its reality, and it is a reality we too can share – and so it is not only faith in God that we can have, but also hope.
Through Christ we can really come to trust in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that our faith are hope are set on God.
Gird up the loins of your mind. Get your mind around these things and share that faith, share that hope … and it makes a world of difference. That’s Peter’s conviction and that’s what I too want to share.
But there is one more thing in this phrase that we cannot lose sight of.
It is for Peter the most important thing.
Gird up the loins of your mind … and prepare your minds for action.
With your hope set firmly on that wonderful loving God disclosed by Christ, on the grace of Christ, discipline yourselves.
Haven’t the Robins got off to a good start! [I am writing this on Friday, so it may need amending by Sunday!!] Not only have they brought in some strikers who can score goals, but they have brought back the great Steve Book, Goalie in the Robins’ golden days of Wembley triumphs and promotion to the league. Coaching Steve Brown the current goalie he was quoted in the Echo this week as having full confidence in Scot Brown - but for Scot Brown it’s all in the mind. He needs more self-belief.
The headline says it all …
Steve Book: Scott Brown’s career could be a page-turner if he shows belief.
In sport it’s what’s in your mind that counts.
Prepare your mind for action.
Gird up the loins of your minds – discipline yourselves, obedience is called for – and the task is to model ourselves not on the values of the world around but on the love of God.
It is as if for Peter faith and hope as they point to God and to the truth that is at the very heart of the world from the beginning, have a cleansing, renewing thing that cleans us out from deep within, clears out all the cobwebs, and renews us … so that we can gird up our loins and prepare our minds for action … in what way – through what Peter describes as ‘genuine mutual love’.
What a wonderful turn of phrase.
That’s the action we need to take – inspired by a genuine mutual love, e are called upon to love one another deeply from the heart.
That means seeking out practical things to do – measuring what we do by the worth it gives not to us but to others – a particular person to see, tasks to be done that will make a difference to someone, maybe the Christian Aid appeal for the floods in Pakistan.
Let’s gird up the loins of our minds in faith, hope and above all in ‘genuine mutual love’, loving one another deeply from the heart.
Do you find sometimes that your mind is thinking about so many different things that it’s a bit like the spring in an old pocket watch – you wind it up to the point at which if it gets wound up any more it will reach its breaking point. You come to the point at which you are so wound up you need to unwind. That’s where taking a break, taking time out, a day to unwind. And that’s the value I have found over the years, not least this year of a good holiday. Time to unwind.
Change the analogy to a computer that has reached its capacity, and your mind is overloaded. It can’t take any more. Or maybe a racing analogy … and your mind is going to spin off.
It’s good to take time out, to clear out the cobwebs.
Then there comes a point when you need to gather up your thoughts.
There’s the time to get your mind into gear … and get it thinking straight.
Isn’t English full of vivid pictures?
Getting into gear, clearing out the cobwebs, wound up, unwind.
The mind mattered for Peter.
“Therefore, prepare your minds,” he writes in 1 Peter 1:13.
He was the kind of person who needed to get his mind around things. There was something about the figure of Jesus that had an immediate impact … Peter, or Simon as he was known among the fishermen on the northern shores of the sea of Galilee, left his nets and followed Jesus.
Jesus saw how important it was for Simon Peter and all the others to learn, to be ‘learners’, to be ‘disciples’. His teaching had an authority to it that impressed Simon Peter and the others – the stories he told, the way he explained things, the new way he opened up for them to follow. It made sense. The way you could wrap up all the law and the prophets in the one simple thought – do to others what you would have others do to you.
Peter thought he had got his mind round it when Jesus asked the disciples who people were saying he was, You are the Christ, the Messiah, the one we’ve been waiting for.
But Jesus knew Peter hadn’t got his mind round it enough – there were hard lessons to learn. Peter thought the Messiah would overturn the Roman power … Jesus came to open up a way through suffering for everyone to follow, a way that would take him to the cross, but beyond the cross to resurrection.
That was something Peter could not get his mind round.
Then three times he denied Jesus, and he wept bitterly.
What was going on? Too much for his mind to take.
And then back on the shore the risen Christ asked him three times, Do you love me?
The waiting over, that unseen yet very real power of God in Christ was felt by Peter – and then he got his mind into gear and rushing down the steps and on to the streets of Jerusalem on the Day of Pentecost Peter it was who made sense of all that was happening and could see what Jesus meant.
But he still needed his mind stretching even more – he couldn’t take it in that this love of God in Christ was actually for everyone – Roman as much as Jew … and it took a vivid vision he had and a remarkable encounter with a Roman centurion to change the way his mind saw things.
He was very conscious of the way the followers of Jesus had been scattered far and wide and he wanted to share his thoughts, his inspiration with them.
And so it was he took pen to paper and this letter addressed to the exiles of the dispersion. Some have thought it unlikely that Peter could write in Greek. But he was one who was able to use his mind. Galilee was occupied by the Romans, he was in a key industry that was supplying the occupation with the fish they needed for their lavish life-style. Greek was the common language of the Eastern half of the Roman Empire. Peter not only spoke Aramaic, albeit with a north country Galilean accent, he could also read Hebrew as a devout Jew, and speak and indeed write in Greek. In all likelihood he would have got by in Latin as well.
He begins with that sweeping summing up of the faith that means the world to him.
And now he comes to that point at which he wants all who read what he has to say to ‘prepare their minds’.
The Greek he is writing in, no less than English, has its vivid way of speaking. And this is one moment when that vivid language comes into its own.
What he writes is this:
“Gird up the loins of your minds.”
Quite a vivid picture. A very basic, very physical image.
Gird up the loins of your minds.
What’s he getting at?
When you read what Peter has to say he has got his mind round who this Jesus is, what that means for his understanding of the world and of God. It’s taken Peter time … but I sense he wants us to get our minds round that too.
Through the teaching of Jesus, the love Jesus showed throughout his life, the death he shared and his resurrection Peter is convinced he has a window on to the God of creation.
In verse 20 he writes of Jesus Christ, He was destined before the foundation of the world, but was revealed at the end of the ages for the sake of all Peter is writing to … us included. Through him you have come to trust in God, who raised him from the dead, and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are set on God.
I believe it’s important to get your mind round such things. I find myself in awe of the wonder of the world, and I seek to make sense of it. I am drawn to the insights of cosmologists, evolutionists – and though no evidence can prove the existence of God, I am passionate that believing in God makes sense in the world we live in. It is believing. It is faith. But it is worthy of the best of minds and it makes sense.
Martin Rees, Astronomer Royal, President of the Royal Society, comes to the end of his fascinating account of the six equations that make sense of the universe and he concludes there are three positions that can reasonably held, that in his view ‘make sense’ It just happened that way, this universe is one of a multiplicity of universes, a multiverse, or that’s how it was created by God. What is important to me is not that Martin Rees should subscribe to that view, but that he respects it as a view that can be reasonably held and that makes sense of the world we see.
More than that I think it is important to make sense of what it is that Jesus opens up about God – in verses 18 and 19, Peter homes in on something remarkable that came across to him through the death of Jesus. It was somehow because Jesus came alongside humanity at its bleakest, at its most God-forsaken, on the cross – ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ and at that point brought forgiving love to the fore - ‘Father, forgive them …’ – that Jesus has become for Peter the one makes real in the lives of each of us the reality that the God of creation is the God of love who forgives and renews. Peter makes sense of that against the background of the world he knew of the Hebrew Scriptures and speaks of Jesus as that precious lamb who takes away the sin of the world.
This is the God of our faith – the God of immense, forgiving, love.
Then in verse 21 he moves beyond the death, to share the importance of resurrection. Christ comes alongside us and all of humanity, shares our suffering – so that at that point at which we are conscious of that suffering and feeling its pain ourselves, we know that we are not alone – God is there with us in the midst of it.
And the suffering, the pain, the death does not have the last word. Beyond is resurrection. It cannot be proved – but Peter knew its reality, and it is a reality we too can share – and so it is not only faith in God that we can have, but also hope.
Through Christ we can really come to trust in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that our faith are hope are set on God.
Gird up the loins of your mind. Get your mind around these things and share that faith, share that hope … and it makes a world of difference. That’s Peter’s conviction and that’s what I too want to share.
But there is one more thing in this phrase that we cannot lose sight of.
It is for Peter the most important thing.
Gird up the loins of your mind … and prepare your minds for action.
With your hope set firmly on that wonderful loving God disclosed by Christ, on the grace of Christ, discipline yourselves.
Haven’t the Robins got off to a good start! [I am writing this on Friday, so it may need amending by Sunday!!] Not only have they brought in some strikers who can score goals, but they have brought back the great Steve Book, Goalie in the Robins’ golden days of Wembley triumphs and promotion to the league. Coaching Steve Brown the current goalie he was quoted in the Echo this week as having full confidence in Scot Brown - but for Scot Brown it’s all in the mind. He needs more self-belief.
The headline says it all …
Steve Book: Scott Brown’s career could be a page-turner if he shows belief.
In sport it’s what’s in your mind that counts.
Prepare your mind for action.
Gird up the loins of your minds – discipline yourselves, obedience is called for – and the task is to model ourselves not on the values of the world around but on the love of God.
It is as if for Peter faith and hope as they point to God and to the truth that is at the very heart of the world from the beginning, have a cleansing, renewing thing that cleans us out from deep within, clears out all the cobwebs, and renews us … so that we can gird up our loins and prepare our minds for action … in what way – through what Peter describes as ‘genuine mutual love’.
What a wonderful turn of phrase.
That’s the action we need to take – inspired by a genuine mutual love, e are called upon to love one another deeply from the heart.
That means seeking out practical things to do – measuring what we do by the worth it gives not to us but to others – a particular person to see, tasks to be done that will make a difference to someone, maybe the Christian Aid appeal for the floods in Pakistan.
Let’s gird up the loins of our minds in faith, hope and above all in ‘genuine mutual love’, loving one another deeply from the heart.
Sunday, July 18, 2010
Circles of Prayer in Streams of Living Water
An arid waste.
Dust.
Barren
No soil.
No growth.
No life.
A desert waste.
no plant of the field was yet in the earth
and no herb of the field had yet sprung up
—for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth,
and there was no one to till the ground;
but a stream would rise from the earth, and water the whole face of the ground—
a life-giving stream
to water the whole face of the ground
life in all its abundance
life in all its glory
a stream to rise from the earth
It was the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens
A stream would rise from the earth,
And water the whole face of the ground
A life-giving stream
7then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground,* and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being.
And the Lord God planted a garden
Think of a garden.
The most beautiful garden you have ever seen.
And it is as nothing to this garden.
The garden of God’s creation.
The garden of Eden.
And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east;
And there he put the man whom he had formed.
9Out of the ground the Lord God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food, the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
10 A river flows out of Eden to water the garden, and from there it divides and becomes four branches.
1The name of the first is Pishon; it is the one that flows around the whole land of Havilah,
13The name of the second river is Gihon; it is the one that flows around the whole land of Cush.
14The name of the third river is Tigris, which flows east of Assyria.
And the fourth river is the Euphrates.
A stream of life-giving water
That becomes a river
That branches out
Into all four corners of the world
The paradise of God’s creation … and yet it is spoiled by man’s inhumanity to man.
It ever has been thus.
The garden and that vision of a stream of living water so elusive – out of our reach – spoiled.
How we long to reach that vision once more …
As a deer longs for flowing streams, so my soul longs for you, O God. 2 My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.When shall I come and behold the face of God?
Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you disquieted within me?
Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my help and my God.
Hy-Spirit
As the deer pants for the water brook
3
As a deer longs for flowing streams, so my soul longs for you, O God. 2 My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.
Jesus knew what it was to thirst
I am thirsty, he cried out on the cross.
In the heat of the sun,
At mid day
And tired out by his journey
Jesus was sitting by a well
He was thirsty.
A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, ‘Give me a drink’. 8
9The Samaritan woman said to him, ‘How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?’ (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.)*
10Jesus answered her, ‘If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, “Give me a drink”, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.’
11The woman said to him, ‘Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? 12Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?’
13Jesus said to her, ‘Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.’
When my soul thirsts for God, for the living God.
When the soul of each one of us thirsts for God
For the living God
We too can echo the words of that woman long ago.
We can turn to Jesus … and say with confidence,
Lord, 15give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty.’
And the water he will give will become in us a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.
There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy habitation of the Most High. 5 God is in the midst of the city;* it shall not be moved; God will help it when the morning dawns.
10 ‘Be still, and know that I am God! I am exalted among the nations, I am exalted in the earth.’ 11 The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge.
how wonderful to sit beside that river … in the quietness, in the stillness, and sense God’s presence.
The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures:
he leadeth me beside the still waters.
He restoreth my soul:
he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness
for his name's sake.
Yea, though I walk
through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil:
for thou art with me;
thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
Thou preparest a table before me
in the presence of mine enemies:
thou anointest my head with oil;
my cup runneth over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
all the days of my life:
and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever.
Isn’t this something worth sharing?
In a dry and arid land.
The vision of a river
Streams of life-giving water
Still waters, green pastures
A hope and a presence …
Is there a stream of living water that can pour out from us into the world around us … a world of such need?
There was a moment when Jesus cried out.
It wasn’t his ordinary voice.
There was an urgency about it.
He knew, he knew how thirsty people were
For something more
For that life-giving water.
And so it was he cried out,
‘Let anyone who is thirsty come to me,
38and let the one who believes in me drink.
As* the scripture has said,
“Out of the believer’s heart* shall flow
rivers of living water.”
What a remarkable cry it was … living water to flow from us into the world around …
This was no ordinary water,
It was the water of the spirit,
The life-giving spirit, that breathes life into the world,
It is the water that sustains,
That strengthens,
That gives new life …
Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water …
’ 39Now he said this about the Spirit, which believers in him were to receive
That spirit of God, unseen yet so very real that gives strength where there is weakness, life where there is no life.
What a difference that would make.
What a task for us to share.
For those streams of living water to flow from us.
What a difference that will make.
We have a vision, a vision to share.
Then the angel* showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb 2through the middle of the street of the city. On either side of the river is the tree of life* with its twelve kinds of fruit, producing its fruit each month; and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. 3Nothing accursed will be found there any more. But the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants* will worship him; 4they will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. 5And there will be no more night; they need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign for ever and ever.
Lord, help me notice
all the still waters
that you lead me beside.
Restore me;
Redeem me;
Remind me
of the sacredness
that glows in silence
on Holy ground.
Hy-Spirit lead us in singing The Lord’s my shepherd
Janet Partington shares John Pritchard's meditation - the Stream
Dust.
Barren
No soil.
No growth.
No life.
A desert waste.
no plant of the field was yet in the earth
and no herb of the field had yet sprung up
—for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth,
and there was no one to till the ground;
but a stream would rise from the earth, and water the whole face of the ground—
a life-giving stream
to water the whole face of the ground
life in all its abundance
life in all its glory
a stream to rise from the earth
It was the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens
A stream would rise from the earth,
And water the whole face of the ground
A life-giving stream
7then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground,* and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being.
And the Lord God planted a garden
Think of a garden.
The most beautiful garden you have ever seen.
And it is as nothing to this garden.
The garden of God’s creation.
The garden of Eden.
And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east;
And there he put the man whom he had formed.
9Out of the ground the Lord God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food, the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
10 A river flows out of Eden to water the garden, and from there it divides and becomes four branches.
1The name of the first is Pishon; it is the one that flows around the whole land of Havilah,
13The name of the second river is Gihon; it is the one that flows around the whole land of Cush.
14The name of the third river is Tigris, which flows east of Assyria.
And the fourth river is the Euphrates.
A stream of life-giving water
That becomes a river
That branches out
Into all four corners of the world
The paradise of God’s creation … and yet it is spoiled by man’s inhumanity to man.
It ever has been thus.
The garden and that vision of a stream of living water so elusive – out of our reach – spoiled.
How we long to reach that vision once more …
As a deer longs for flowing streams, so my soul longs for you, O God. 2 My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.When shall I come and behold the face of God?
Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you disquieted within me?
Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my help and my God.
Hy-Spirit
As the deer pants for the water brook
3
As a deer longs for flowing streams, so my soul longs for you, O God. 2 My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.
Jesus knew what it was to thirst
I am thirsty, he cried out on the cross.
In the heat of the sun,
At mid day
And tired out by his journey
Jesus was sitting by a well
He was thirsty.
A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, ‘Give me a drink’. 8
9The Samaritan woman said to him, ‘How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?’ (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.)*
10Jesus answered her, ‘If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, “Give me a drink”, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.’
11The woman said to him, ‘Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? 12Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?’
13Jesus said to her, ‘Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.’
When my soul thirsts for God, for the living God.
When the soul of each one of us thirsts for God
For the living God
We too can echo the words of that woman long ago.
We can turn to Jesus … and say with confidence,
Lord, 15give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty.’
And the water he will give will become in us a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.
There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy habitation of the Most High. 5 God is in the midst of the city;* it shall not be moved; God will help it when the morning dawns.
10 ‘Be still, and know that I am God! I am exalted among the nations, I am exalted in the earth.’ 11 The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge.
how wonderful to sit beside that river … in the quietness, in the stillness, and sense God’s presence.
The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures:
he leadeth me beside the still waters.
He restoreth my soul:
he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness
for his name's sake.
Yea, though I walk
through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil:
for thou art with me;
thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
Thou preparest a table before me
in the presence of mine enemies:
thou anointest my head with oil;
my cup runneth over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
all the days of my life:
and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever.
Isn’t this something worth sharing?
In a dry and arid land.
The vision of a river
Streams of life-giving water
Still waters, green pastures
A hope and a presence …
Is there a stream of living water that can pour out from us into the world around us … a world of such need?
There was a moment when Jesus cried out.
It wasn’t his ordinary voice.
There was an urgency about it.
He knew, he knew how thirsty people were
For something more
For that life-giving water.
And so it was he cried out,
‘Let anyone who is thirsty come to me,
38and let the one who believes in me drink.
As* the scripture has said,
“Out of the believer’s heart* shall flow
rivers of living water.”
What a remarkable cry it was … living water to flow from us into the world around …
This was no ordinary water,
It was the water of the spirit,
The life-giving spirit, that breathes life into the world,
It is the water that sustains,
That strengthens,
That gives new life …
Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water …
’ 39Now he said this about the Spirit, which believers in him were to receive
That spirit of God, unseen yet so very real that gives strength where there is weakness, life where there is no life.
What a difference that would make.
What a task for us to share.
For those streams of living water to flow from us.
What a difference that will make.
We have a vision, a vision to share.
Then the angel* showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb 2through the middle of the street of the city. On either side of the river is the tree of life* with its twelve kinds of fruit, producing its fruit each month; and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. 3Nothing accursed will be found there any more. But the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants* will worship him; 4they will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. 5And there will be no more night; they need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign for ever and ever.
A Meditation by Judi Marsh
Restoring the Sacred Centre
Lord, help me notice
all the still waters
that you lead me beside.
Restore me;
Redeem me;
Remind me
of the sacredness
that glows in silence
on Holy ground.
Hy-Spirit lead us in singing The Lord’s my shepherd
Janet Partington shares John Pritchard's meditation - the Stream
Sunday, July 11, 2010
Pass it on!
I met a man who is known to all the children in Cheltenham … and yet none of them has ever seen him. Mums and Dads, and Aunts and Uncles … and even Grandparents too know when he has been about. They know when he is needed. But few if any have seen him.
And I met him on Thursday afternoon.
It was what you might call a Grand Parental afternoon. I was in charge. A pick-up from nursery … and then a visit to the bank – a fascinating experience steering a push chair with fixed wheels through the queuing arrangement for the post office upstairs in WH Smith’s, up the Promenade, bumping into Joyce Jones on the way, through the Open Air art exhibition – at 1 and a quarter, Grandson, Lake really enjoyed that. Through Imperial Gardens and on to Montpellier Gardens … and a great treat. A roundabout, a swing, a climbing frame and best of all – the railings that you could pretend you were a Lion in a cage.
Into the Garden Art Gallery for a taste of modern art – will he be an artist when he grows up, I wonder? Some might say he could have done better .. but I actually wouldn’t say that.
And then back past the back of the old telephone exchange, round by the Playhouse and into Sandford Park, a conversation with the men removing the kind of water cress that has taken over the ponds. One man had looked after those ponds for years, and then he retired last year and no one has taken on his job. But two people were doing it now. Wonderful! Across College Road and round the park … no, not to the playground. But to the back entrance to the Lido café. For a lovely cup of tea … and apple juice.
And there he was standing against the counter.
Weather beaten, his white van parked on the grass of the park. The conversation began with the weather and then quickly moved on … so do you look after the park. There are 53 playgrounds in Cheltenham, he said, and he was the one person to look after all them all and see that the play equipment. One man looking after all that equipment. And he had just returned the new bus – that’s brilliant, I said, it’s Lake’s favourite. And it’s brand new. Only been there since April. It will seat 10 and more youngsters and you can sit at the wheel and drive the bus! Wonderful.
That’s what I made through the winter, he said. So what are the place names on the bus – there are about four of them the children can change. Why aren’t they ones we recognise from the Cotswolds, I asked. That would be too dull, he said. One is where I was born in Cornwall, another is where my son lives outside Leeds, another is a place in France I go to on holiday.
Do you know, I said, one of the people in our church Marion Taylor who helps co-ordinate all the flower arranging lives in a flat overlooking Pittville Park. Her husband was an aero engineer at Staverton, and the country’s leading engineer on the Dove, an amphibious aeroplane. When he died Marion arranged for a replica Dove to be installed in the chidlren’s playground. For children to fly.
I made that, my new friend, informed me, I got all the specifications off the internet and made sure that the word Dove was there – not just painted on but gouged into the wood so it wouldn’t come off. And I have just given it a once over
And now I’m working on a tug boat but I haven’t decided where to put it.
Isn’t that wonderful. One man … no one ever sees him, but everyone knows when he’s been there. And the difference he makes is immense. And the impact he has on children immeasurable.
We owe him a big thank you.
And you don’t do all of that just because it’s your job.
Somewhere around there – is a passionate commitment to children …
I guess that’s one of the things we all celebrate today on this occasion.
A passionate commitment to children.
Friends, family – godparents – all come to this special occasion because the children in our lives matter, and for today, these two, Jamie and Matthew matter the world.
It’s also one of the things that has driven this church from the very start.
Within 25 years of its opening its first building was too small and a bigger church building built – but the first building on Grosvenor Street was then used for the next 80 years for children’s work. Sunday school, Day School, all sorts of youth groups, within 6 months of Scouting beginning nationally, home to Scouts, and then to Guides. And when in 1932 those two buildings were replaced by this building it was built in such a way as to combine on one site a church with rooms that can be used for children’s work. And they are well used through the week- from our new Baby Café on a Thursday morning, through Toddlers, to Beavers, Cubs, Scouts, Guides, and then on Tuesday evenings our own Transformers group and on Sunday evenings Hy-Tec. And we are just putting all the plans together for our summer holiday club in the week leading up to the Bank Holiday.
Big commitment – lots of people make it happen behind the scenes. It is important.
What is it that we want to pass on to these children as a church family?.
Fun and games, a safe place to play, love, care. All of this is important.
There are four things I feel passionately about and I want to share …
The starting point for me comes in something Jesus said when he was put on the spot during the course of a heated argument he was having …
And I met him on Thursday afternoon.
It was what you might call a Grand Parental afternoon. I was in charge. A pick-up from nursery … and then a visit to the bank – a fascinating experience steering a push chair with fixed wheels through the queuing arrangement for the post office upstairs in WH Smith’s, up the Promenade, bumping into Joyce Jones on the way, through the Open Air art exhibition – at 1 and a quarter, Grandson, Lake really enjoyed that. Through Imperial Gardens and on to Montpellier Gardens … and a great treat. A roundabout, a swing, a climbing frame and best of all – the railings that you could pretend you were a Lion in a cage.
Into the Garden Art Gallery for a taste of modern art – will he be an artist when he grows up, I wonder? Some might say he could have done better .. but I actually wouldn’t say that.
And then back past the back of the old telephone exchange, round by the Playhouse and into Sandford Park, a conversation with the men removing the kind of water cress that has taken over the ponds. One man had looked after those ponds for years, and then he retired last year and no one has taken on his job. But two people were doing it now. Wonderful! Across College Road and round the park … no, not to the playground. But to the back entrance to the Lido café. For a lovely cup of tea … and apple juice.
And there he was standing against the counter.
Weather beaten, his white van parked on the grass of the park. The conversation began with the weather and then quickly moved on … so do you look after the park. There are 53 playgrounds in Cheltenham, he said, and he was the one person to look after all them all and see that the play equipment. One man looking after all that equipment. And he had just returned the new bus – that’s brilliant, I said, it’s Lake’s favourite. And it’s brand new. Only been there since April. It will seat 10 and more youngsters and you can sit at the wheel and drive the bus! Wonderful.
That’s what I made through the winter, he said. So what are the place names on the bus – there are about four of them the children can change. Why aren’t they ones we recognise from the Cotswolds, I asked. That would be too dull, he said. One is where I was born in Cornwall, another is where my son lives outside Leeds, another is a place in France I go to on holiday.
Do you know, I said, one of the people in our church Marion Taylor who helps co-ordinate all the flower arranging lives in a flat overlooking Pittville Park. Her husband was an aero engineer at Staverton, and the country’s leading engineer on the Dove, an amphibious aeroplane. When he died Marion arranged for a replica Dove to be installed in the chidlren’s playground. For children to fly.
I made that, my new friend, informed me, I got all the specifications off the internet and made sure that the word Dove was there – not just painted on but gouged into the wood so it wouldn’t come off. And I have just given it a once over
And now I’m working on a tug boat but I haven’t decided where to put it.
Isn’t that wonderful. One man … no one ever sees him, but everyone knows when he’s been there. And the difference he makes is immense. And the impact he has on children immeasurable.
We owe him a big thank you.
And you don’t do all of that just because it’s your job.
Somewhere around there – is a passionate commitment to children …
I guess that’s one of the things we all celebrate today on this occasion.
A passionate commitment to children.
Friends, family – godparents – all come to this special occasion because the children in our lives matter, and for today, these two, Jamie and Matthew matter the world.
It’s also one of the things that has driven this church from the very start.
Within 25 years of its opening its first building was too small and a bigger church building built – but the first building on Grosvenor Street was then used for the next 80 years for children’s work. Sunday school, Day School, all sorts of youth groups, within 6 months of Scouting beginning nationally, home to Scouts, and then to Guides. And when in 1932 those two buildings were replaced by this building it was built in such a way as to combine on one site a church with rooms that can be used for children’s work. And they are well used through the week- from our new Baby Café on a Thursday morning, through Toddlers, to Beavers, Cubs, Scouts, Guides, and then on Tuesday evenings our own Transformers group and on Sunday evenings Hy-Tec. And we are just putting all the plans together for our summer holiday club in the week leading up to the Bank Holiday.
Big commitment – lots of people make it happen behind the scenes. It is important.
What is it that we want to pass on to these children as a church family?.
Fun and games, a safe place to play, love, care. All of this is important.
There are four things I feel passionately about and I want to share …
The starting point for me comes in something Jesus said when he was put on the spot during the course of a heated argument he was having …
Mark 12:28-31
One of the scribes came near and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, he asked him, ‘Which commandment is the first of all?’ 29Jesus answered, ‘The first is, “Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; 30you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.” 31The second is this, “You shall love your neighbour as yourself.” There is no other commandment greater than these.’
Love God – for me that begins with an incredible wonder and awe at this incredible world we live in. I am up for hunting for fossils, looking at the stars, looking through a lens at an incredible world in miniature. A sense of awe leads me to the sense of one greater than anything I can see – the God who is above all, and beyond all and in all. That sense of wonder and awe and a sense of something beyond. That’s something I want to pass on.
Love your neighbour. If this is God’s world we care for it … and we care for one another in it. Everything else follows on from that. Let’s look out for each other. Be there for each other. Help each other all we can. Love one another. And there’s no bounds to who your neighbour is. The most unexpected person, the least likely person, the least likeable of people. That’s something to explore, and develop and tease away at.
The next thing I want to pass on to children through church is the space for some extra dimension in their lives. I feel passionately that our children need a sense of a spiritual dimension. For children growing up the world is full of noise, sometimes that noise can be troubling. It is full of busyness with a busy round of activities to do and things to go to … there are things to learn and to grow. It’s great seeing the things that they do in nursery, and engaging with others. Lake met a little girl from nursery on the bus. She just wanted to kiss him … he wasn’t into that at all. Then to school … and it’s a round of learnig and growing. But great pressures. Testing regimes, exams, schools pressured into giving first priority to the league table. The world children are growing up into is a scary world … not least with everything that’s going on at the moment.
And all those responsible for children recognise in some way or other the need for something deeper. Scouting has recently published a booklet for leaders – Rising to the Challenge – exploring spiritual development in scouting. At the beginning the booklet quotes the purpose of scouting ‘to contribute to the development of young people in achieving their full physical, intellectual, social and spiritual potentials.”
Under spiritual potential the identify five key principles.
develop an inner discipline and training
be involved in corporate activities with others
understand the world around them
help to create a more tolerant and caring society
discover the need for prayer and worship, both personal and shared.
That last one is the one I feel is valuable – and I want to share. And we share it in all sorts of different ways.
The thought that we can in prayer link in and relate to the God we hold in such awe – that this God is there with us in our praying. I like the activity of all that goes on in children’s work … I like the quiet too.
Transformers finishes by bringing the children into this space. There is something special. It’s the way most Sundays finish for me … as I come in at the end of Hy-Tec – and join in the finish. Worship with the band – and then a circle around the table – in the dark. And the quiet.
And that prayer is important.
Something to pass on to children … the notion that we can chat with God, as Becky put it, that God is close …
And that brings me to that final thought. For me all of this is wrapped up in one person whose story is very precious and can make a real difference. Jesus. What he teaches makes a difference, but also his presence with us, a friend. Can’t see him – but somehow we know he’s around. And he invites us to use words that I was taught as a child, taught at school, and words that are precious. The family prayer – worth passing on
Our Father who art in heaven
Hallowed be thy name - that’s the awe and the wonder
Thy kingdom come
Thy will be done
On earth as it is in heaven - that God’s values take hold
Give us this day our daily bread - that daily needs are met
And forgive us our trespasses - the God we believe in is loving, forgiving
As we forgive those who trespass against us – a forgiveness we reflect
And lead us not into temptation
But deliver us from evil - a God who protects and guides us
For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory – awe and wonder
Forever and ever. Amen. - is where we finish
.
Sunday, July 4, 2010
Restoring the sacred centre ... peace! be still!
As you walk down the steps from the ruined abbey on the cliff top above Whitby, you come to the parish church. It is unique. Built by shipbuilders from the port at the foot of the cliffs, as you look up at the ceiling you are looking at the underside of the deck of a boat from one of the boatyards.
Felicity introduced me to a link to a cycle of prayer for the countries of the world that over the years I have found helpful. It bears the logo of the World Council of Churches, a boat on the sea.. It is an image taken up by churches together in this country too.
I like that image.
It works in all sorts of ways.
But today I want to explore one particular way.
And it starts with that wonderful account of Jesus asleep in a boat as he crosses the Sea of Galilee.
Felicity introduced me to a link to a cycle of prayer for the countries of the world that over the years I have found helpful. It bears the logo of the World Council of Churches, a boat on the sea.. It is an image taken up by churches together in this country too.
I like that image.
It works in all sorts of ways.
But today I want to explore one particular way.
And it starts with that wonderful account of Jesus asleep in a boat as he crosses the Sea of Galilee.
Mark 4:35-41
On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, ‘Let us go across to the other side.’ 36And leaving the crowd behind, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. Other boats were with him. 37A great gale arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped. 38But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke him up and said to him, ‘Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?’ 39He woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, ‘Peace! Be still!’ Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm. 40He said to them, ‘Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?’ 41And they were filled with great awe and said to one another, ‘Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?’
Leaving the crowd behind.
Jesus came to make a difference to the world. His mission was to reach out wherever there was need. IT was something he could not and did not want to do on his own. He had called the twelve to follow him, to be his disciples. He had just shared lots of stories with a massive crowd of people all of whom were anxious to learn more, to receive his healing ministry, and to discover the wonders of the kingdom of God.
There was a buzz of excitement as Jesus, with the the twelve shared with the massive crowd so much.
But there came a moment when it was necessary to leave the crowd behind.
And leaving the crowd behind they took him with them in the boat, just as he was.
I wonder whether there is an image there of something of what church is about. As followers of Christ our task is to be involved in the world, in the neighbourhood, be it with friends, neighbours, in work. In whatever setting we are in part of our commitment as Christians is to live out our faith, to embody this wonderful love of God. We are involved as it were with the crowd – with all those needs. Think of needs, people you are concerned for, issues that challenge you, the issue we have had shared with us today from the Knole and Langley House trust. It is a mass of needs – a crowd that sometimes feels as if it crowds in on us.
There comes a moment when we need to leave the crowd behind and gather together with those who share our Christian commitment. We need to get into the boat.
Let’s see church, this place, as that boat. And the key thing is that we have Jesus with us. His presence is with us.
But as we gather in here we are not unaware of the troubles around us in our world. Sometimes we can be even more intensely aware of those troubles. If we had not come this morning, we wouldn’t have learned about the Knole, we wouldn’t have been thinking about those in prison and their needs. We are conscious of a world around us in turmoil.
A great gale arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped.
It seems like that. And when we are aware of the troubles in the world we sometimes wonder, where is Jesus?
It is telling in this story - he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion.
The reaction of those disciples is the reaction we can sometimes have.
They woke him up and said to him, Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing.
Where is Jesus? We want to wake him up. Shake him vigorously.
Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing.
He woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, Peace Be still.
Then the wind ceased and there was a dead calm.
But the real world is not like that.
Or is it?
I believe that there is something that can happen here in this place as we ‘leave the world behind’ are aware of the storms, and summon Jesus to be with us.
That voice of calm can speak into the world we find ourselves in.
Peace! Be still! can be so real.
Drive down the motorway and around the services what you don’t realise is that you drive between two major prisons. To the left is Leyhill, an open prison. John Hunter, now turned 80 and still in ministry at our church in Frampton is part of the chaplaincy team at Leyhill. He started there more than 20 years ago when he had to do a placement on our training course for ministry and he chose to do it at Leyhill. It was moving to see the chapel and the role it plays.
On the opposite side of the motorway is Eastwood Park a major women’s prison. It has a noisiness, a troubled feel to it – a large proportion of those in prison there have mental health issues. But it too has a chapel.
As in Leyhill, though in a different way. It is a haven. A space where people can come. Find a listening ear. A space for thinking, for quiet and prayer. Moving to see the space that is created. In each of our prisons – seeking to give a space. The value of the chapel – in restoring the sacred centre. On both sides of the motorway, that chapel is a place of calm, where those words Peace be still are precious.
This too is such a space. In all sorts of ways. One of the things we do is to host a couple of ‘anonymous groups’ Narcotics Anonymous, Cocaine Anonymous. Playing a key part in helping people cope with their addictions, the people who find those groups such a help are appreciative of somewhere to meet. One of the groups invited me to join them for their time together.
They clearly valued the space they had. For them it was a haven. And the meeting had a deep spirituality to it, as they shared, listened and reflected. Each group follows that twelve step pattern pioneered by Alcoholics Anonymous with its emphasis on seeking a power and a strength from beyond ourselves.
They touch something more that we are about.
Those in prison. Those imprisoned to an addiction. The value of a place of peace in the middle of a stormy life.
But not just them. Not just those over there. This is something to make a difference to each of us.
We each need a place where we can leave the crowd behind. Be in the presence of Christ. And hear him say, Peace be still.
The Brewing of Soma is a strangely timely nineteenth century poem about those who seek religious experience through various drugs, not least hashish or cannabis. Into a world that sometimes seeks religious experience in ways that can be harmful … maybe we need to hear again that still small voice of calm.
Up through the green wood curled;
"Bring honey from the hollow oak,
Bring milky sap," the brewers spoke,
In the childhood of the world.
And brewed they well or brewed they ill,
The priests thrust in their rods,
First tasted, and then drank their fill,
And shouted, with one voice and will,
"Behold, the drink of gods!"
They drank, and lo! in heart and brain
A new, glad life began; . . .
The naked Santon, haschish-drunk,
The cloister madness of the monk,
The fakir's torture show
It is easy to fall into the trap in church of seeking to replicate the feelings, the sensuousness, that longing for experiences in what we do
And yet the past comes round again,
And new doth old fulfill;
In sensual transports wild as vain
We brew in many a Christian fane
The heathen Soma still!
But actually we have something quite different to receive and to offer.
Let’s join in singing the last part of that poem …
Dear Lord and Father of mankind,
Forgive our foolish ways!
Reclothe us in our rightful mind,
In purer lives Thy service find,
In deeper reverence, praise.
In simple trust like theirs who heard
Beside the Syrian sea
The gracious calling of the Lord,
Let us, like them, without a word
Rise up and follow Thee.
O Sabbath rest by Galilee!
O calm of hills above,
Where Jesus knelt to share with Thee
The silence of eternity
Interpreted by love!
With that deep hush subduing all
Our words and works that drown
The tender whisper of Thy call,
And noiseless let Thy blessing fall
As fell Thy manna down.
Drop thy still dews of quietness,
Till all our strivings cease;
Take from our souls the strain and stress,
And let our ordered lives confess
Thy beauty of Thy peace.
Breathe through the heats of our desire
-Thy coolness and Thy balm;
Let sense be numb, let flesh retire;
Speak through the earthquake, wind, and fire,
O still, small voice of calm!
John Greenleaf Whittier
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